


The Impossible Dream

by Miss_Katrina



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd is a Mess, F/F, F/M, I also have A Thing about Don Quixote, I have A Thing about Fairies, I might also have A Thing about Phoenixes, In fact barely edited, Jeralt Lives!, M/M, Making Deals With The Devil (Or Not), Nobody Likes Lorenz, Not Beta'd, Rhea is a Horrible Person, SPOILERS (God all the spoilers), Seriously don't read this if you don't want spoilers/don't know all of Rhea's secrets, Seteth Is Tired Of Rhea's Shit, Sothis Lives!
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-08
Updated: 2021-03-01
Packaged: 2021-03-18 15:35:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 23
Words: 80,640
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28620408
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Miss_Katrina/pseuds/Miss_Katrina
Summary: When the Black Eagles return from the Red Canyon, they bring with them Edelgard's older (and possibly completely insane) sister Alva von Hresvelg. Edelgard is thrilled. Claude isvery confused.Dimitri gets yelled at for being incompetent, and Seteth starts asking Rhea some awkward questions.Basically, Edelgard deserves good things, and her primary problem is that she is (for very good and sufficient reasons) unwilling to trust people. I decided to address both points by resurrecting her crazy sister, because you can absolutely be both crazy and capable (LOOKING AT YOU, DIMITRI) and Alva is 100% willing to yell at/recruit people for her sister. Also, determined to fix El and Emrys's mutual pining situation. Claude responded to this by taking one look at Alva and goingwell aren't you an interesting enigma,and promptly took over. (I admit this is partly because I am really annoyed that Claude doesn’t have a ‘defect to Edelgard’ option, like, he has NO REASON to be loyal to the church??)So apparently we're deviating significantly from canon, though thus far Canon is still visible on the horizon. We'll have to see how long that lasts.
Relationships: (Most of these are background relationships), Annette Fantine Dominic/Felix Hugo Fraldarius, Claude Von Reigan/Alva (Edelgard Von Hresvelg's sister), Dorothea Arnault/Petra Macneary, Edelgard von Hresvelg/My Unit | Byleth
Comments: 153
Kudos: 89





	1. Garreg Mach

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This has been overhauled entirely! So you know. Backtracking to the beginning.

When Edelgard arrived at Garreg Mach, she still felt a little shaky. Her very first plot as the Flame Emperor, and it had failed spectacularly—and none of her doing that it hadn’t been the end of her entirely. She had thought to clear the way for her revolution by removing at least one of the other heirs from the playing field, or putting them in her debt by saving them, and instead it was she who was now in the debt of this strange newcomer—this Emrys Eisner, with her calm eyes that seemed to look straight through all of Edelgard’s masks. Edelgard would have to step carefully, here—even more so than she had expected, which was quite carefully indeed, since she would be spending the next year in the heart of the church’s territory, under the very eye of the creature that had spent the last thousand years subjugating humanity with lies and exploiting them to her own ends.

At least Jeralt and Emrys Eisner seemed to have no particular love of the church: indeed, Emrys seemed to hardly even know it existed. And they were mercenaries: perhaps Edelgard could hire them?

One could only hope, anyway.

Jeralt did not like the way Rhea looked at his daughter. He’d never liked it, not when she was a baby, and not now: it was covetous, greedy, and slightly mad. _We should have gone to Almyra, after all._ He’d done so well, keeping Emrys away from the church and its influence as she grew from a vulnerable infant into this cool, collected woman, but now he had been caught. And drat Alois for recognizing him and proclaiming his identity, for forcing his hand like this. And now Rhea had gotten her claws into Emrys, making her a teacher in the Officer’s Academy.

_Goddess, guard my daughter,_ Jeralt prayed, silently, and hoped that he would not have to fake her death again to get her free of this place a second time.

As Emrys Eisner went around introducing herself to all the academy students, she was careful not to broadcast the fact that she knew already which house she would be taking. Her father had warned her to beware of Archbishop Rhea, and even if she didn’t know why, she trusted his judgement. So she’d play her cards close to her chest, for the moment, and pretend that this was other than a foregone conclusion, that she could pick anyone but the girl she would have died protecting, if not for Sothis’s interference.

She even had a good excuse, she thought, after she’d introduced herself: Both Manuela and Hanneman were primarily mages, and while that was all well and good, the Black Eagles were mage-heavy already: They needed a teacher to balance them out a trifle, rather than encourage them to become even more lopsided. (Really, Emrys thought that organizing the students based on political affiliations was foolish—if the point of educating people centrally was to establish personal connections to foster peaceful relations, you should be encouraging them to mingle, and separate them out by their primary areas of study. Archers needed different training than knights, and both needed different training from mages, and honestly this was absurd. And for tactical training, they should be getting experience with as many kinds of people as possible, and not the same people all the time—a tactician needed to be _flexible.)_

Claude admitted a certain amount of disappointment when the mysterious newcomer was announced as the head of the Black Eagles. Hanneman was good, but from what he knew of him, he was an academic type, relatively inexperienced at actual fighting and battle—a field in which Eisner clearly shone. On the other hand, his tutors in Almyra had been experienced generals and experts at physical combat, so perhaps it was just as well that his main teacher here in Garreg Mach would be more focused on magic, and the sociopolitical systems of Fódlan, as well as the church—all of which Hanneman clearly knew quite well, whereas Eisner appeared to somehow know less about the church and political systems of Fódlan than _Claude_ did, and he was raised Almyran!

Of course, all that flew out the window a few weeks after classes started, because apparently Eisner had gotten a good look at her students, realized she was expected to teach them _alone,_ and said “this is dumb.” She’d pointed out that she could hardly instruct Lindhart in faith magic, that Alois was far better at running heavy armor drills than she was, and had recruited what seemed like half the adult population of Garreg Mach (starting with her father, who was held in slight awe by most of the old guard, who thus had a certain amount of trouble saying _no_ to him) to help instruct her fledgelings in everything she was not herself capable of teaching them. Then she got Manuela involved (‘what, so I was just supposed to ignore the fact that the _head of the infirmary_ was giving lessons? What kind of strategist doesn’t take advantage of an opportunity like that? Healing is important!’), and that gave Claude the opening he needed to corner Hanneman about this after the third bell.

“Professor Hanneman? I was wondering if you would be willing to sign off on us attending some of the classes the Black Eagle house is running? It’s just that, well, Leonie found out that Captain Jeralt is running cavalry drills, and I heard that Linhardt has been going to some of Professor Manuela’s healing classes, so I was wondering…”

Hanneman hummed, thoughtfully. “Well, I don’t see why not. I did say I would consider instructing Professor Eisner and a few of her students in magic and crestomancy. But they’ll need to get permission from the individual instructors—I don’t know how Professor Eisner persuaded them to agree to teach her students in the first place, if she’s paying them or what. Perhaps you should try talking to Professor Eisner herself, first? If the two of you bring a proposal to Seteth, perhaps you could manage to regularize whatever arrangements she made and open up the classes to all the students. Worth trying, anyway.”

So Claude thanked Hanneman and went off to find Professor Eisner. Only when he did find her, she appeared to be rather preoccupied with trying to prevent Ferdinand from challenging Edelgard to some sort of duel involving reciting poetry about famous battles, and Hubert from following through on his threats to silence Ferdinand by force if necessary, and Caspar seemed to be yelling more or less for the sake of yelling, because why not, and Claude decided that discretion was the better part of valor and he’d be better off waiting until everything was a little bit calmer.

So Claude approached Professor Emrys that evening, when she was fishing with her father. It was a fine, warm night, bright with stars and with the moon fat and low to the horizon, giving enough light that Claude could have read by it if he had wanted to. Professor Emrys didn’t seem to mind the interruption too much, and when Claude explained that Hanneman had suggested they bring a formal proposal to Seteth, she agreed readily enough.

It was a little harder to convince Seteth, of course, but he made the mistake of calling in Rhea to try to defend his position (he was against the expenditure of it, felt it was unnecessary), and Rhea said she was thrilled that Professor Eisner was taking such an interest in her students, and in the workings of Garreg Mach, and how brave she was to admit that she wasn’t qualified to instruct her students on religious matters, to arrange for everyone to have instruction on the Church Of Seiros and how they could best serve it, and certainly they could accommodate such a harmless request, Seteth could help them set up a timetable, surely?

…All of which effusiveness made Claude feel a little bit uncomfortable, but he wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth, and so a few days later there was a big announcement and the bulletin board in the dining hall gained an enormous timetable on which all the classes were listed, and the class heads became responsible for instructing each student what classes they were expected to take each week, on top of the baseline required tactics course (taught by Emrys), the Religious Studies course (taught by Manuela, and which even Emrys attended, at Rhea’s insistence), and the Political History of Fódlan (taught by Hanneman, and rather heavy on crests, but something Claude found quite useful regardless.)

Claude decided that coming to the officer’s academy at Garreg Mach was the best decision he’d ever made. (He was even more gleeful when he discovered a disused stillroom near the infirmary that he could use for poison development, because _the possibilities!_ )


	2. The Red Canyon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which we meet Alva. She's mad about the horseshoe thing.

Edelgard might not like having to share her new Professor (and she knew Hubert didn’t approve of how attached she was getting, but she didn’t care), and the ‘religious studies’ and ‘political history’ classes she now had to take made her mad enough to _spit,_ but she could admit that the new system Professor Emrys had come up with was a vast improvement, even if she would have preferred it remain restricted to the Black Eagles house. Still, Professor Emrys was looking significantly less haggard now that the bulk of the organizational obligations had been given to Seteth, which was nice, and the Black Eagles (under Professor Emrys’s command) had won the mock battle by a good margin; they’d taken out the Golden Deer first, since Professor Emrys said that Claude was a sneaky bugger and tactics beat brute strength every time. (Professor Emrys had informed Dimitri _repeatedly_ that creativity and imagination were critical to tactical strategy, but Dimitri was not listening. Dimitri was not good at critical thinking or logic, but he was _dangerously_ charismatic.)

Then Hubert gets word that Lord Lonato’s plans to rebel against the church had advanced ahead of schedule, and Edelgard wants to scream. They had been _so sure_ that he wouldn’t move openly against the church while his adopted son was here at Garreg Mach! What was he thinking?! If he only waited, then the church wouldn’t have access to his heir, a potential hostage to use against him! (If he only waited, Edelgard could have--) Lonato would have been a valuable ally, a Faerghus lord that wasn’t loyal to the church, but if he was defeated _now,_ he was sure to be replaced with someone utterly devoted to Rhea, and his land was right on the border of Adrestia! Edelgard couldn’t move to support him, not yet, she would have to _watch him fail._ It was infuriating.

The night after she hears, Edelgard dreams of her siblings, dying in the dark. Of being unable to save them, no matter what she does. She is awoken by Emrys, who apparently heard her and came to see what was wrong—and Edelgard finds herself, almost against her will, telling her about it. About all ten of her siblings, lost in the dark, lost beyond recovery. She tells her, and she remembers a song one of her sisters—her dearest sister, the one it hurt most to lose—used to sing, about a beacon in the darkness, to guide lost sailors home. _Light the way, in the dark, when you’re lost, I will keep the light shining, I will show you the way, follow me home. There are rocks in the sea, serpents you and I can’t see, but I swear, I will keep the lantern lit…_

Edelgard looked at Professor Emrys, unlike anyone else she’d ever known, and thought: _You could be a beacon in the dark, for me. I hope I do not have to see you dead before I am through._

******

Emrys did not like useless bandits. The Red Canyon was strange, and she didn’t like that, either. She particularly did not like that Lady Rhea had forbidden her father from accompanying them on this mission. Jeralt still wouldn’t say why they needed to beware of Lady Rhea, but Sothis agreed, and that was enough for Emrys. Edelgard was uneasy and unhappy, too, and wouldn’t say why; she’d been having nightmares fairly regularly, and there was nothing Emrys could do about it.

Emrys appreciated Sothis letting her use her ability to rewind time, however. That was very helpful, especially when Ferdinand and Caspar insisted on barreling forward recklessly and putting themselves in danger, yelling at the top of their lungs. She’d put Hubert on Ferdinand-duty, and tried to keep Caspar under control by telling him his _very important assignment_ was making sure Linhardt was protected at all times, because he was the healer and vulnerable. It was…mostly working. And then a young woman emerged from the ruins and stabbed a brigand who was menacing Bernadetta while yelling something about horseshoes, and all the way across the battlefield, Edelgard’s head snapped up.

* * *

Alva was annoyed. She’d been minding her own business, making her way to Garreg Mach to find her sister, and she’d been caught by _idiotic bandits._ They weren’t even _competent_ bandits! They’d decided to rob the poor farmer who’d been putting her up for the night, and she’d tried to help, and when they’d realized she was dangerous one of them had panicked and _thrown an iron horseshoe at her head._ Which was a _wonderful_ way to discover that apparently she was _allergic to iron,_ now, which was just lovely, because there was no way she’d been hit over the head hard enough to warrant being unconscious for the length of time that must have elapsed between then and now. She wasn’t quite sure how she’d gone from ‘hit on the head with a horseshoe in a farmer’s kitchen garden’ to ‘tied to a pillar in some quite ancient looking ruins, alone, while people battled outside’, but she didn’t particularly feel like waiting to see if the victor of the pitched battle would feel inclined to untie her.

To her delight (and further scorn at the incompetence of her captors), Alva discovered that she could, with care, get her boot knife free, and spent the next couple of minutes sawing at the rope that held her bound the pillar, until it finally gave and she was able to get loose. A quick search of the room revealed her rapier, plus her pack, mostly untouched, had just been thrown into a pile with a bunch of stuff she would broadly categorize as ‘loot’. Excellent. Alright, time to go see who was making that truly frightful row—had someone just yelled _I am Ferdinand von Aegir?_ Really? She must have misheard that, it made no sense whatsoever.

Alva carefully poked her head out around the wall between her and the nearest source of combat noises just in time to see the idiot who had thrown the horseshoe at her preparing to strike a terrified-looking young archer with an axe. The archer dodged, thankfully. Before he could raise his axe to make another attempt, Alva stabbed him with her rapier, snarling, “Oh, no you don’t! That was for the horseshoe, you incompetent _jackass!”_

As sometimes happens, this exclamation occurred in a temporary lull in the noise, and suddenly everyone was staring at Alva, standing there with a bloody rapier, as she continued her rant, slashing at the brigand to force him to back away from both her and the panicking archer. “I mean really, what did you think, ‘oh, you know what sounds like a good idea? A horseshoe! I have perfectly viable weapons on my person, but NO, I think the best thing to do when faced with a _woman with a sword_ is THROW A BLOODY HORSESHOE AT HER HEAD. And you decided, what, that I looked important, so you’d cart me off to your ridiculous bandit lair, tie me to a pillar—without immobilizing me or searching me properly, so it took me about five minutes to get free when I woke up—“

This was more than the beleaguered brigand could handle, and he made a frantic swipe at Alva’s shoulder with the axe. Alva took advantage of the opening this created to finish him off, kicking him one last time for good measure. She looked up, scanning the area to see how many bandits were left, and met Edelgard’s fixed, incredulous stare from across the battlefield.

Alva blinked. “ _El?_ What on earth are you doing here? You’re supposed to be at the monastery!”

* * *

After the last few brigands are defeated, Edelgard drags Alva off into the ruins for some privacy. “Alva? It is you, isn’t it? Not someone wearing your face? But you went mad, I _know_ you went mad, you were just sitting there, unresponsive, they said you’d never recover!”

“It’s me, El. They didn’t lie to you, though—my mind went wandering, when I was trapped there, and I had to make a deal with a devil to become even mostly whole again.”

“ _A deal with a devil?_ Alva, what—“

“I mean, technically not a devil, but a spirit. I met one of the greater spirits—you know how in stories, sometimes people meet the soul of the mountain, or the king of the river, and they make a deal? Like that. I met a spirit called Neith, and she wanted something I could give her, so I said I would, and in exchange, she restored my mind. I have access to certain of her powers, in extremity, and I’ve become…a bit more than human, but I’m still me. I couldn’t leave you to face these people alone, El.”

“Alva, what on earth did you promise? Is it dangerous?”

“El, it’s fine. It’s purely a personal price, and it won’t come up for a while yet. You needn’t worry about it. I know what I’m doing, and I’ll see you safe.”

“But why did no one tell me? How long have you been—“

“Not long. I didn’t come back to myself properly until after you’d already left for Garreg Mach; when I did, I snuck out of my tower, got Father to write me a letter of recommendation in secret, and snuck out. I didn’t dare let anyone know about me before I established myself at Garreg Mach; I didn’t want to risk the dastards vanishing me if they got hold of me before I established myself. Once I’m established somewhere they don’t have full control, they can’t grab me without causing a great hue and cry, so I should be safe enough. According to the letter Father wrote for me, I got very ill when I was younger, and only recently recovered enough to leave isolation—I don’t know how to explain the fact that you didn’t know of my recovery, unless we just say that you knew I was recovering, but didn’t realize I was recovered enough to attend Garreg Mach this year? Perhaps I wanted to surprise you.”

And so it was decided. Once they’d settled on a tale to tell people, Edelgard and Alva spent a few minutes having a properly emotionally incoherent tearful reunion. It needed to happen, and they both felt much better afterwards. Edelgard told Alva about all the other Black Eagle students (and Professor Emrys), and Alva asked incredulously if that meant she really had heard Ferdinand yell “I AM FERDINAND VON AEGIR” in the middle of battle, and Edelgard confirmed that she had. When Edelgard got to the part about Dorothea being an opera singer, Alva was so thrilled she actually squeaked. (Edelgard refrained from teasing her.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> God, you have no idea how long I spent futzing about trying to figure out how to introduce Alva here. I actually went back and played through far enough to get to the Red Canyon chapter so I could go into first person view and look around to see what the landscape looked like, so I could figure out what the bandit camp was like! I'm mostly happy with the way this went, though. 
> 
> (Part of this overhaul was a result of my finding a timeline I wrote up a while back and forgot about, where I had decided to make Alva show up earlier, rather than after the battle at of the Eagle and the Lion, if only to avoid conflating her with Monica. This was earlier than even that timeline had her show up, but it seemed such a good excuse!)


	3. The Western Church

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so apparently Claude and Alva have some Thoughts about the whole Western Church thing. I should probably mention that they're both slightly unreliable narrators at times, ditto Edelgard, since they all have their own suspicions about what's going on with everything? but, well.

The Black Eagles returned from their bandit-extermination mission with a new member, and that throws Claude. She’s Edelgard’s _older_ sister, too, but Edelgard’s still the heir; despite that, there’s no hint of disaffection or jealousy between them, but a bond of love so strong you can practically touch it. 

She’s baffling.

Alva von Hresvelg, she introduced herself as, and she’s both very similar to and nothing whatsoever like Edelgard: the same coloring, the same moon-pale hair and uncanny violet eyes, but tall and slender, where Edelgard is short and stocky. Edelgard’s skills lie in axes and armor; Alva uses a rapier, and magic. _Faith_ magic, even, for all that she doesn’t seem particularly pious.

(She also took one look at Lysithea and adopted her, practically, and no one is quite sure what to make of that, least of all Lysithea.) 

Claude’s actually a little bit nervous about that last bit, because among much else, Alva doesn’t seem exactly _sane—_ he’s seen her talk to empty air, as if there was someone he couldn’t see, and he’s not entirely comfortable with that. 

All that aside, however, she makes Edelgard smile in a way he’s never seen, even for Emrys, and heaven knows that whatever is building between Edelgard and Emrys is practically an open secret at Garreg Mach, and the only people who don’t seem to be aware of it are the two of them—well, that’s not fair, it just seems sometimes like everyone else has caught on. But the thing between Edelgard and Emrys is—it hasn’t even gotten far enough along to be called “new”, it’s just a budding thing, whereas the love and devotion between Alva and Edelgard is clearly well-established, and Edelgard lets her guard down around Alva in a way that’s almost incredible to watch. 

(Hubert, incidentally, is so clearly nonplussed by this new development that he looks about ready to have kittens. Edelgard is so busy being elated at her sister’s presence that she hasn’t noticed her retainer’s ambivalence, but Alva has clearly noticed and is equally clearly amused by the whole situation.)

That’s another thing: Claude did his research about the political situation in Fódlan before he came, and he hadn’t heard so much as a whisper about other potential Hresvelg heirs, or about the kind of scandal that would result in the elder being disinherited; he’d assume it was crest-related, as so many unfortunate things are in this unfortunate society, but Hanneman is far, far too interested in Alva for her not to have a crest. 

So, to sum it up: The Black Eagles house has acquired, on top of the mysterious Emrys Eisner as its house head, a brand new house member, mid-term: an unknown new Hresvelg girl, significantly older than all the other students with the possible exception of Mercy, who was apparently rescued from the bandits after a fiasco involving horseshoes. (No one is willing to explain the horseshoes thing, to Claude’s frustration.)

Claude is stumped. In the end, he gives up and writes to his grandfather, asking if he’s ever heard rumors of illegitimate Hresvelg daughters, and if he knew why one would show up suddenly, just a couple months into the semester, obviously on excellent terms with Edelgard. The letter he gets back doesn’t help, particularly: in it, his grandfather says that he hasn’t heard of any illegitimate daughters, and if there were any, they’d be unacknowledged, not calling themselves von Hresvelg, but that before the nobles of the empire had wrested control from the emperor ten years ago, there had been several other legitimate Hresvelg children, all of whom were supposed to have died when a nasty plague swept through the capital. He didn’t remember the names of the other Hresvelg children, but Alva sounded familiar; he thought he might have met her, once, at a diplomatic function. 

So. Not illegitimate at all, but that hardly explained why she was supposed to have died, or her sudden reappearance; nor even why Edelgard was next in line for the imperial throne, and not Alva. Perhaps she _was_ mad, had been driven mad by her illness? That would explain a good deal, if not her presence here and now. 

Tapping one finger against his chin, Claude decided that for now, he’d bide his time, and see what use he could make of this new player in the game.

Over the course of the next month, Claude starts hearing rumors about a place called the “Abyss”, some sort of catacombs under the Monastery, but before he has time to investigate that properly, he learns that this month all three classes are going together on a joint mission, to help mop up after Ashe’s father’s failed rebellion. (That’s a bit of a kick in the teeth, and Claude can’t help feeling bad for the poor kid; the Blue Lions students seem kind of shellshocked in general, and Dimitri’s reaction in particular is…not great. Dimitri seems to think there is never any excuse for a lord to lead his people into battle if they’re not being directly attacked, but Claude and several of the Alliance students who remember learning about how they got their independence disagree. Ferdinand also argues that it is the duty of a noble to protect his people, not to endanger them, but is silenced when Alva tells a story about a noble who has to choose between marching to war and permitting a demon to take a tithe of souls each year. It’s a sober moment. Claude is losing by the day any respect he might have had for Dimitri, who still refuses to see the point of the logic exercises Professor Emrys keeps assigning in tactics class, and fails to understand the point of the story Alva told.)

So, at the end of the month, all three classes get sent to mop up after the rebellion. It’s bad. They get to meet Thunder Catherine, which would be cool if she didn’t radiate the same obsessive crazy Dimitri and some of the senior church officials seem to have, the kind that says _I am so confident in my moral superiority that I have decided that common sense and logic are unnecessary extras,_ which makes the hair on the back of Claude’s neck stand up. (The primary difference between the auras of madness that Dimitri and Alva carry with them is, as far as Claude can tell, that Dimitri seems to have replaced reality with an only partially overlapping conception of the world, failing to perceive any number of things that don’t suit his personal narrative; Alva, on the other hand, has just superimposed extras onto the world, nothing distorted or removed. It’s the difference between denial and assertion, and Claude will take assertion over denial any day.)

Catherine has a showdown with Lonato, and murders him fairly bloodily while Ashe watches. Claude feels sick. Dimitri says something about how there must have been a way to achieve a peaceful resolution, that Lonato had thought his cause was just, and who was to say he was wrong? And Claude thinks: _you did. You said that, when you castigated him for endangering his people._ Then they return, and Lady Rhea gives a speech about how valuable it was for the students to learn firsthand the fate that awaits anyone, civilian or combatant, that turns against the church, and Claude has to force down a bubble of anger that rises in his throat _._ He doesn’t show it, of course, but he doesn’t like threats, and that’s a threat if he ever heard one: _see what will happen to you if you do not obey me._ He wonders if about this time every year they find a way to send the students out to execute people the church disagrees with, just to make the point that the church of Seiros has ultimate authority over everyone in Fódlan, no matter what country they live in. He thinks he wouldn’t be surprised.

Then Catherine reveals that she found a scroll detailing a plan to assassinate Lady Rhea on Lonato’s body. But Claude was there for the final confrontation between Lonato and Catherine, and he heard what Lonato yelled at Catherine, what Catherine didn’t even bother to deny— _You executed my son for treason he did not commit! You framed him to save your precious reputation!_ –and he wonders.

* * *

Edelgard is furious. As far as she can tell, the whole reason Lonato was pressed into open rebellion early was to be able to plant the ‘secret message’ about the assassination attempt. So now she needs to figure out what the real goal is, before they burn _more allies_ as ‘expendable’. (Part of her is terrified that they’re after Alva, but since the wheels of Lonato’s rebellion would have had to be put in motion before she became a wildcard to them, that seems unlikely. She still makes Alva swear to be careful.)

Edelgard still sometimes catches herself thinking it must be a dream, that Alva’s recovered, that she’s not so alone anymore. It seems too good to be true. But she remembers what it was like when her uncle Arundel was replaced, and his behavior was totally different—he didn’t move the same way, or speak the same way, even if he did have her uncle’s voice. She’s fairly certain that she’d know if this Alva was an impostor, because no one has ever been quite like Alva, Alva who sang and danced and told stories. This is Alva. It’s a damaged Alva, an Alva who was shattered and lost and fought her way back to stand beside her, but it’s still Alva.

The Rite of Rebirth approaches, and it becomes fairly clear that the real target must be something in the holy mausoleum. Somewhat to Edelgard’s surprise, it is the Black Eagles that are assigned to guard the Holy Mausoleum—perhaps it is her imagination, then, that Lady Rhea has been looking at her askance.

Of all the things Edelgard was expecting the thieves to be after, the tomb of Saint Seiros was not one of them. What do they want with her bones? But these dastards sent Lonato and his people to their deaths just to have a chance at this, and she’s not about to let them have it unopposed.

…Admittedly, she also wasn’t expecting them to pull in the Death Knight, because he wasn’t supposed to be given orders behind her back, and this was infuriating. (She does appreciate his refusal to take orders beyond ‘show up,’ though.) She yelled at all the other students to give him a _wide berth_ (and made a mental note to tell Alva about him, at least the bare bones of it, once everything settled down a bit) and was gratified when Professor Emrys seconded the order.

Then they were fighting, and the casket was opened, and Professor Emrys suddenly had a holy relic sword that had been inside it, albeit one without a crest stone, and even without the crest stone, it glows. Once the Death Knight sees the sword, he vanishes, as do the other dark mages, leaving the students to apprehend the remaining priests, who appear very confused and indignant. (Edelgard has a terrible feeling about this.)

Lady Rhea doesn’t even bother to listen to the priests before she orders them executed, and executed immediately. Not only is there no trial, there is no investigation into what they were trying to achieve, or why, or who was ultimately responsible. Edelgard can’t decide if this means that Rhea was somehow _complicit_ and already knows, and if so what that means about Lonato’s rebellion, or if she’s just that incompetent. And then she presses Professor Emrys to keep the _Sword of The Creator,_ and there are no words for how much trepidation Edelgard has about this whole situation.

* * *

Claude hears about what happened in the Holy Mausoleum—of course he does, everyone does, no one can stop talking about how Professor Emrys now has the _sword of the creator,_ right out of legends, it’s insane—and the fact that all the priests captured are executed without so much as being questioned, and the order is given to do the same for the officials of the Western Church. He also notices that no one seems to be particularly concerned about the fact that Seiros’s body is apparently missing. _(You framed him to save your precious reputation_ , Lonato had said.)

Claude wonders, again, how culpable the priests had been. He starts spending more nights sitting up reading in the library, looking for references to the Sword of the Creator, and accounts of the death of Saint Seiros. On one such night, while Claude is sitting up reading in the library long after everyone else—librarian included—has gone to bed, he’s startled to find himself interrupted by Alva, who can move _stunningly_ quietly when she wants to.

“Claude! Exactly the man I was looking for. I need a favor, one trickster to another.”

Claude blinked, looking up from the book he’d been reading into Alva’s brightly smiling face. “One trickster to another? I think I’m flattered, but suspicious. What’s the scheme, and why are we discussing it halfway through the midnight bell in the library?”

Alva’s smile went crooked. “Well, I needed to get you alone, with reasonable privacy, and since you’re the only one reliably to be found in the library at this hour? It seemed easiest. It’s nothing nefarious, but definitely something I don’t want talked about. How do you feel about teacher-student relationships?”

Claude stared, and decided not to address the fact that she knew about his secret research binges. His voice was embarrassingly weak when he asked, “...are we talking about your sister?”

Alva laughed, and Claude took a moment to pray no one was near enough to hear her. She wasn’t _loud,_ exactly, but she wasn’t exactly _whispering,_ either.

“So you noticed! I thought you might’ve, she’s not quite as subtle as she thinks she is. Yes, this is about El, and the fact that while she and Professor Emrys are clearly ridiculously gone on each other, neither looks like they plan to do anything about it...ever? Probably ever. Other than kind of pine uselessly. I mean, I’m also sort of worried about the way that Archbishop Rhea fixates on our Professor, because it’s about three kinds of creepy, and I get the impression that if El actually managed to start something with Professor Emrys, she’d blow a gasket? In possibly a Very Bad Way. So this is a two-part scheme, really: part one is figuring out why Lady Rhea is so fixated on Professor Emrys, and clear the way to make sure that anything that happens between them won’t cause explosions, and part two involves speeding up the timescale of this romance so that they’re an Established Item by the time the ministers back home start pressuring El to make some stupid political marriage, because I am not letting my baby sister be forced into a loveless political marriage when she’s got someone she loves and who loves her.”

Claude remembered, rather abruptly, that he’d never actually settled the question of whether or not Alva was _sane_. “You’re serious, aren’t you? Leaving aside the first part of this plan, how are you going to manage to avoid the Emperor of Adrestia being forced to provide heirs? I’m all for love, but not at the expense of a succession crisis.”

Alva shrugged. “It won’t come to that. If they won’t accept a non-bloodline heir—“

Claude cut her off: “they won’t, you know. Crests. The Hresvelg line is descended from Saint Seiros herself, they bear her crest—no one will want to accept an heir from a different line.”

“I’m alive, aren’t I? I’ve got a minor crest of Seiros myself, and I’ve always wanted kids.” Alva’s eyes went soft, suddenly, and very sad. “I’ve even got a list of names—though sometimes I think it would be better to give new names, without the baggage...”

Claude cleared his throat, awkwardly. _So, whatever removed you from the line of succession isn’t hereditary, good to know._ “Well, alright, if you’re willing to play brood mare so your sister doesn’t have to—" just in time, Claude caught the look in her eye and backtracked, “—not that there’s anything wrong with wanting kids! I always wished I had siblings, when I was little—anyway, I just meant that in that case, yes, the heir issue can be put aside. Let’s say I’m willing to help you. What exactly do you want me to do, and what do I get out of it?”

Alva smiled. “Ah, there speaks the schemer. For now, I want your help asking certain questions, investigating things, and your perceptions: there’s a saying runs 'the outsider sees most of the game,' and I’ve been watching you, I think it applies. You’re not involved, and come to this without preconceptions; that’s useful to me. You’ve got good eyes, and clear vision, and can find things out for me without anyone suspecting anything. As for what you get out of it...well, the joy of the game, for one; the pleasure of knowing more than those around you, for two; and for three, an insider to give you as much information from my side of the fence as you like—within reason—and, of course, I’ll owe you.”

Claude’s mind raced, speeding ahead to consider the proposition from all angles. Alva was right on all points: he could use her, and having her owe him would come in handy; even more, if they pulled it off, Edelgard would owe him. 

Claude smiled, and extended his hand for Alva to shake. “I’m in. What’s this about Lady Rhea?”

So Alva sets out the whole long damning sequence, starting with Rhea hiring a totally unknown and presumably unqualified woman who knew _nothing about the church_ to teach at the Officer’s Academy, letting said stranger radically restructure the way the Academy is run, sending her to lead a group into one of the most restricted holy places, and then _ordering her into the holy mausoleum when an attempt was made to steal the lost sword of the creator,_ an attempt she was stunningly incurious about, and then pressing Professor Emrys to wield said lost holy relic, and executing everyone involved before they have a chance to say anything. _They said they had nothing to do with the western church,_ Alva tells him, somber. _That they had been deceived, and that this was ‘not what they were told was going to happen’. They didn’t sound defiant, they sounded_ betrayed.

Claude thinks of the exchange he heard between Catherine and Lonato, and relates it to Alva. She nods, slowly, contemplatively. “That’s bad. We’ll need to step very carefully—we don’t want to get ourselves executed on trumped up charges just because we were indiscreet. Be careful, little trickster—I mightn’t be the only one who noticed your after-hours reading habits.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This ends rather abruptly, but I've decided to not worry about perfect flow and just focus on getting it all DOWN for the moment, so we're running with it. Some of you may have noticed last chapter that I've sped up the timescale of Edelgard's supports; this is because a) her finding out about the thing with Lonato seemed a good opportunity, and b) I really wanted her to have at least her first support with Emrys before Alva showed up. (Incidentally, I hate the name Byleth, and I like Emrys as a fairly gender-neutral name with much more appropriate symbolism, given the role.)


	4. Relics and Dreams

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is a bit of a short chapter, but it marks the first mention of the reference I'm making with the title! You'll have to wait to get a full explanation, I have a whole big section written up for that but it doesn't come until after Edelgard is revealed as the Flame Emperor. 
> 
> I love the scene on the GD route where Edelgard and Claude talk about their determination to change the world. They're both great, and honestly they really should be cooperating with each other, and all they need is a little push to work together--or, in this case, a crazy Alva.

Lady Rhea is, as Alva pointed out, extremely creepily fixated on Professor Emrys. Claude is actually kind of embarrassed to admit he hadn’t actually recognized how unsettlingly obsessed she is. Claude spots Rhea watching from her balcony when Emrys has tea with Edelgard in the courtyard on _three separate occasions._ Jeralt is also _visibly_ uncomfortable with the attention his daughter is getting from Lady Rhea. It occurs to Claude that Jeralt was a _Captain of the Knights of Seiros,_ a group well-known for their religious devotion, and yet after he vanished he raised his child with no knowledge of the church _whatsoever._ Claude isn’t sure what to make of that, but he doesn’t think it’s a good sign.

The assignments for the next month come out, and apparently Lady Rhea is going all-in on her personal mission to force them to execute close relations of current students who go against the church, because _Sylvain’s brother_ has apparently gotten his hands on the Gautier family relic, and the Black Eagles are being sent to eliminate him and his band of thieves. The logic is apparently “all the knights of Seiros are off mass-murdering the Western Church, and rather than have them make a detour to handle this, we’re going to get Professor Emrys to do it, since she has the Sword of the Creator and Lady Rhea is determined to make her use it, since thus far she’s not been using the _literally legendary mountain-cleaving weapon_ in basic weapons practice.”

Apparently Sylvain, in an uncharacteristically serious moment, went right up to Professor Emrys the day after the missions were announced and requested to be allowed to come along. _He’s my brother, and the Lance of Ruin is my responsibility. Please let me help._

Professor Emrys agreed, and then somehow half of the Blue Lions were suddenly seconded to the Black Eagles for the month, while several of the Adrestian students agreed to take their places on the Blue Lion mission to help the knights of Seiros stamp out any remaining members of the Western Church. (Claude feels that making Ashe go with Catherine, who is now directly responsible for the death of his father _and_ his brother, is needlessly cruel, but he doesn’t dare say so. He also feels that it’s probably just as well that Mercy, easily the most pious lion, isn’t going on that mission. At least she’s just going after thieves.)

Claude, of course, because Rhea’s genius for sending Academy Students against their own people is truly remarkable, is helping Alois and Shamir fend off Almyran pirates attacking Derdriu. 

Meanwhile, the records on the death of Saint Seiros and the Sword of the Creator are functionally nonexistent, and apparently the rumors Claude was hearing start to resolve into the fact that there’s some place under the Monastery, possibly in the catacombs, called the ‘abyss,’ which doesn’t sound ominous at all, what are you talking about? _The church’s dirty underbelly is 100% literal, apparently._ Oh, and Teach has the legendary Crest Of Flames, thought to have died with Nemesis, the King of Liberation, because of course she does. (The records about Nemesis are also both scarce and contradictory, and Claude hates the picture he’s starting to form of the church’s role in Fódlan’s history.)

Claude misses Almyra. It turns out that the pirates aren’t Almyran, just idiots pretending to be Almyran to scare their victims. On the one hand, he’s glad he didn’t actually have to fight his countrymen, but on the other, he really wishes people would _stop giving Almyrans a bad name._ (In his frustration, Claude makes a few unwise remarks on the subject of impersonating Almyrans, and catches Hilda giving him an odd look, after. He forgot how much cleverer she was than she pretended to be. However, Hilda is much more likely to keep her suspicions to herself and possibly try to blackmail him with them later, to get out of chores, so he’s not _too_ worried.)

When the Black Eagles return, Sylvain is carrying the Lance of Ruin, and everyone looks a little wild about the eyes. Claude catches Alva’s eye and raises an eyebrow, and she gives him a fractional nod.

That night, Alva and Claude meet in the library. Quietly, in a voice as hard as stone, Alva explains what happened. _Miklan tried to wield the lance. It turned him into a giant, ravening monster. Lady Rhea wasn’t surprised, and told us not to talk about it. She said that he was transformed into a ‘black beast’ as punishment for using a Hero’s Relic even though he was ‘unworthy’. She knew it would happen, and did not warn us. And she tried to convince Professor Emrys to surrender the Lance of Ruin to the church, even though it’s necessary for the safety of Sylvain’s people._

Claude makes a mental note to never, ever try to wield a relic that isn’t his. “She knew?”

“She knew.”

Before they could continue their conversation, they were interrupted by Tomas, the librarian. Claude cursed himself for not checking to make sure the library was empty, but the librarian had always been in bed for the night by this hour, and he hadn’t thought he would change his habits.

Then Tomas explains. “I simply heard you speaking of the Heroes' Relics. I can tell you more about them, if you'd like. Stories of misfortune have followed the Heroes’ Relics since ancient times. The story goes that Nemesis was corrupted by evil because of the Sword of the Creator. Other Heroes also lost themselves by continuing to use the Relics...transforming into Black Beasts with twisted souls. There used to be a great many records regarding the dark history of the Relics.”

Claude catches at a key phrase in that last statement. “ _Used_ to be?”

Tomas nods, somber. “They have been destroyed, across all of Fódlan. Stripped from their shelves, including those that resided at this very library. You have been searching for answers to questions that are forbidden to ask, and you have been doing so secretly, in the night. I would suggest you stop before the knights notice.”

Tomas leaves, and Alva raises an eyebrow. “Going to take his advice on that?”

Claude snorts. “You know I won’t. I can’t afford to, and what would you do if I did?”

Alva sighs. “You know, I never did ask you what you were looking for when I first found you here.”

“Aw, Alva, you don’t really expect me to tell you such a personal secret as that, do you? Though, if you were to tell me some of your secrets in exchange…”

Before Alva can answer, they’re interrupted by _Edelgard,_ of all people, accompanied by Professor Emrys. And Edelgard offers to share a secret with Claude. _Unprompted._ Claude scrambles for solid ground, makes a joke about Edelgard being the _least_ likely person to share a secret (this is a lie, Claude is fairly sure Edelgard keeps no secrets from Alva, Hubert is far more likely to take a secret to his grave), and Edelgard launches a counteroffensive, raising the subject of _Claude’s_ secrets, and presses on the subject of his origins and background when Claude desperately tries to change the subject. Professor Emrys says nothing, but gives Claude an enquiring look, and when he turns to Alva for support, she raises her hands in an unmistakable “hey, leave me out of this” gesture.

Backed into a corner, Claude surrenders, or at least makes a gesture of surrender. “My dream, in truth, is a selfless dream. But I require power to make it a reality. When I learned about the power of my Crest, I knew I had a chance. So I'm chasing that dream. To the bitter end, if need be. I came to this monastery because I thought I might find someone useful. Someone to help me on my path. So, what do you think? If you promise to help me achieve my dream no matter what, I'll promise to tell you anything.”

Alva, Claude notices, looks wistful, and perhaps fond. Professor Emrys, characteristically, looks at Edelgard, to see what she makes of this. Edelgard grimaces, and shakes her head. “I have my own dream to tend to, and can make no blind promises. I pray that your dream does not interfere with mine, and will do my best to support you as long as I may, should your cause be worthy.”

That’s… a significantly greater concession than Claude was expecting. Professor Emrys finally contributes to the conversation, with a softly spoken, “If it’s a noble dream…”

Claude thinks of his people, of the conflict between Almyra and the Alliance, of the orphans and the wounded. “The noblest dream I know of, “ he affirms, feeling oddly like he’s swearing an oath.

In the stillness that follows Claude’s statement, Alva’s voice is barely a whisper. “We are all true knights, then, that we must dream impossible dreams.”

Claude thinks about taking offense at that—his dream isn’t impossible—but based on the look on Edelgard’s face, he’s missed something. (He consoles himself with the knowledge that Emrys looks equally bemused.)


	5. The Abyss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Canon? What Canon? (anyway, cindered shadows clearly occurs somewhere around this time, since Alois and Shamir talk about how most of the knights are off dealing with the western church, so why not?)
> 
> Claude experiments in confiding in people, and Seteth reveals he is kind of awesome?

Flayn goes missing. Garreg Mach is in an uproar, and Claude decides it’s finally time to investigate this business about the “Abyss” in the catacombs of the Monastery. Hilda offers up some information gleaned from her brother’s time at the academy, which is less helpful than Claude could have hoped, but eventually they manage to find a passage in a disused part of the Monastery, dimly illuminated by whatever is at the other end.

Cautiously, they proceed down the passageway. Eventually, they start to hear voices—talking about spying on a meeting of the cardinals, and what someone overheard. A booming voice adds something about plots and villainy, and Hilda frowns. “That voice sounds familiar.”

Claude pauses, looking at her. “Familiar how? Do you know him?”

“I’m not sure. I feel like I ought to, though.”

Edelgard offers, “Well, there are definite signs of habitation, here, so I think we’ve found the Abyss, at any rate.”

Abruptly, one of the conversationalists from the room beyond is standing in the entrance to the passage. He is tall and somewhat androgynous, with sleek lavender hair, and his voice, when he addresses them, is cool and cynical. “Point to the silver maiden. Welcome to the Abyss, strangers. What business have you here?”

Claude, seeing no point in subterfuge here, answers promptly. “We’re looking for a kidnapped young woman. Her name’s Flayn, and she has long green hair, it’s pretty distinctive—have you seen her?” 

Before the lavender-haired man can reply, he is joined by an angry blonde woman. “You lie! I, Constance von Nuvelle, know the truth! You are here by order of the church, which cruelly plots to eliminate the inhabitants of the Abyss!”

And then everyone is talking over everyone else, shouting to be heard and arguing incoherently. Fighting breaks out. Eventually, everyone calms down, and it’s established that no, the Academy Students were not sent by the church, they came of their own accord, because yes, there is a missing girl, that wasn’t made up to provide an excuse to execute everyone living down here. (Claude has to admit that it’s not a particularly incredible theory, sad as that is.) The booming voice is Balthus, and Hilda _does_ know him, he’s a good friend of Holst’s, and apparently he’s a compulsive gambler who was recruited by Lorenz to try to find out Claude’s secrets. Mr Lavender (the one who Lorenz would have recruited if he had _any sense whatsoever)_ is Yuri, adopted son of Count Rowe, and an acquaintance of Ashe’s, though from his response to Ashe’s suggestion that he ought to go home because Count Rowe must be worried sick, it’s a bit more complicated than that. Constance is apparently the last scion of an Adrestian noble house that was destroyed in the war with Brigid. (Whatever happened, it makes Edelgard look extremely unhappy, but Alva looks mostly just rather blank. Claude makes a note that, apparently, Alva is not particularly cognizant of recent events in the Adrestian Empire.) The last one, Hapi, doesn’t offer up any information about her family or past, but does confirm that the Abyss is a home for the outcasts and the unwanted. In fact, the four of them offer to help search for Flayn if the “surface-dwellers” will help them repel the attacking mercenaries, an offer which Professor Emrys accepts readily.

They defeat the mercenaries, even though some creep with a mask and a huge _scythe_ shows up, wanting to challenge Professor Emrys. Edelgard pitches a fit and starts yelling. Alva throws the biggest blast of white magic Claude has ever _seen_ at the roof above his head, and he only just manages to teleport away before it collapses over him. (Claude is impressed.) Yuri is only saved from assassination by a church official who teleports in at the last moment, thereby confirming that Rhea _absolutely_ knows about this place, and does _nothing about it._ Claude tries to imagine a security risk greater than a huge, unmapped expanse of secret underground passages, inhabited by all the most vulnerable and desperate of people, unbeknownst to most of those who live above, and fails. Moreover, since Seteth has not sent search parties down here, she didn’t even bother to tell him about it when Flayn was kidnapped.

Aelfric explains that this place is the church’s answer to the unfortunate: consigning them to a secret, sunless crypt, so that they can be forgotten and ignored with impunity, and persecuted if they dare attempt to leave. Oh, he doesn’t put it like that, he talks about “providing a refuge” and “sacred duty”, but that’s what it comes down to. This place is a prison, for those whose only crimes are being undesirable. Claude hates it, and from the looks on Alva’s and Edelgard’s faces, they agree with him.

Dimitri, of course, thinks it’s a lovely idea, and begs Aelfric to tell him more about this charming system for dealing with the dispossessed. Claude can’t bring himself to be surprised.

(Then Aelfric starts talking about how well he knew Professor Emrys’s parents, _including her mother,_ who from everything Jeralt has said was someone he met _after_ he left the monastery. Claude makes a mental note that he and Alva really need to talk to Jeralt about what he might know about Lady Rhea’s obsession with Emrys. Aelfric also asks her to take on the four “ashen wolves,” because of course Rhea _gave them an academy house name despite the fact they weren’t officially students and could never graduate._ )

The few prisoners they managed to take in the attack on the Abyss were less than forthcoming. This was frustrating, but since it seemed born of ignorance rather than malice, not something they could help. The only thing they did manage to get out of them was that whoever hired them was after some _thing,_ not some _one_ , hidden in the Abyss.

Ashe looked disappointed. “So, whoever kidnapped Flayn has nothing to do with the attacks on the Abyss?”

Claude considered it. “That’s possible. The way I see it, there are two possibilities. Either someone kidnapped Flayn to provide an excuse to search the Abyss, or some third party is taking advantage of Flayn’s kidnapping to search the Abyss for whatever it is they want. In the former case, there’s still a good chance Flayn is down here, and even if she isn’t, if we can find what they’re looking for, they’ll be willing to trade her for it; in the latter case, I’d bet good money she _is_ somewhere down here. So we should search down here regardless.” 

Yuri hummed. “If your first suggestion is correct, that means that there is something down here that is valuable enough to be worth causing this much uproar to obtain, and difficult enough to either find or retrieve that it couldn’t be searched for in secret. I can’t think of anything that fits that description down here, can you, Aelfric?”

After hemming and hawing for a few minutes, Aelfric admitted that he could, and explained about a long-standing legend of a sacred chalice crafted by Saint Seiros that was supposed to be able to _resurrect the dead._ Apparently she worked with four “apostles” (distinct from the saints remembered by the church today), failed, and bound the chalice so that it would never fall into “mortal hands,” hiding it in the “chasm of the bound” below the Abyss.

Claude stared. “Okay, so I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that I _absolutely_ believe that someone might be willing to kidnap Flayn and cause all this upheaval to distract from searching for a _sacred artifact that can bring the dead back to life._ That is _definitely_ a solid lead, let’s start with that.”

Professor Emrys took the lead again. “Then, if we’re agreed, I think we should break for a little bit—we really need to report this to Seteth, who must be going _out of his mind_ with worry, and will want to be part of the search party; we should also make sure we’ve got the supplies for a trip into unknown and potentially unsafe territory. Meanwhile, if you four”—and here Emrys gestured to the ashen wolves—“would ask around about passages into the deepest parts of the Abyss, look for any passages going _definitely down_ , that’ll give us a place to start tomorrow. Sound good?”

The Ashen Wolves were a little nervous about the idea of getting any Official Church People involved, but once Claude promised not to involve anyone other than Seteth (and even they had to admit that Seteth had a right to know), they agreed that it would be best. Aelfric offered to be the one to inform Seteth, and it was generally agreed that this was probably best.

That night, after a solid hour of tossing and turning, Claude decided that if he wasn’t going to be able to sleep, he could at least get some research done. So he made his way to the library, intending to see if he could track down any references to the four “apostles”, only to duck into an alcove at the head of the stairs when he heard the voices of Seteth and Rhea raised in argument from Seteth’s office. Finally, Seteth yelled something loudly enough that Claude could make out the words, nearly screaming, “ _How can you expect me to be calm? Flayn is missing! We have no leads! You told me it was_ safe, _that the monastery was_ secure, _and now Flayn has been missing for_ over a week _and you can stand there and tell me you are_ sure she will be fine!?”

…and that was odd, because Aelfric had promised to tell Seteth immediately, but if Seteth was acting, he was a better actor than Claude had given him credit for. He sounded half-hysterical, and Claude felt terrible. So he waited until Rhea departed, and crept to the door of Seteth’s office, finding him sobbing desperately over his desk. Alone. _Yeah,_ _Aelfric definitely didn’t tell him anything._ Awkwardly, Claude cleared his throat. “Uh, Seteth? Sir?”

Seteth _leapt_ to his feet, whirling around to face the intruder. When he saw who it was, he looked confused. “What are you doing out of bed at this hour? Unless you have news of Flayn, I don’t—“

Claude interrupted him. “That’s the thing, sir, I think I might. We—several of us students and the professor, I mean—think we might have found a lead about why Flayn was kidnapped.”

Seteth sank back into his chair, staring. “You think you might have found a lead--?”

“Yes, sir. It turns out there’s a whole maze of catacombs and—and so on, hidden under the Monastery, maybe even older than the monastery itself, and no one knows the full extent of them. They’re inhabited—all the rejects and the outcasts, apparently, are banished there—and someone’s been attacking them.” Seteth made a choked noise, and Claude rushed on, not willing to let himself be interrupted before he said what he had to. “—Anyway, there’s a story that says there’s a sacred artifact called the _Chalice of Beginnings_ that’s supposed to be able to bring back the dead, only it didn’t work, and it was hidden beneath the Abyss--that’s what they call that place, the Abyss—and apparently someone’s been hiring people to attack the people living there, to look for something, but they’re _saying_ they’re looking for Flayn, so we thought maybe someone kidnapped her to have an excuse—“

Seteth had gone dead white. “A whole _network_ of— _under_ Garreg Mach? Inhabited? And what’s this about a chalice that brings the dead back to life?”

So Claude, awkwardly, repeated the story Aelfric had told them, of Seiros ordering a chalice built to bring back someone who had died, of four apostles who had tried and failed, and whose names had been forgotten. He ended up with “—so you see, even if Flayn isn’t down there (and frankly, sir, I wouldn’t be surprised if she was), we think someone should check this out, because there’s been no ransom demand, so I can’t think of any _other_ reason someone would take her, and the Professor is taking a group of us down tomorrow morning to check it out, and Aelfric said he’d tell you, because we thought you should know, only I guess he decided not to, because it seems like someone in the church is probably involved, since only church people would have heard of the Chalice, so you can come if you like but please don’t tell anyone?”

“I see. Yes, I think I _will_ come with you tomorrow morning. Do not worry, I will not tell anyone—if you’re right, and someone from the church _is_ involved, that could endanger Flayn, and I would not risk her for anything. Thank you for telling me. What made you think Aelfric hadn’t?”

“Uh, I overheard you arguing with Rhea, and then you were crying, and I figured if he had told you, you wouldn’t have been.”

“Perspicacious of you. You did not, then, come here for the express purpose of telling me?”

“No, I couldn’t sleep and thought I’d see if I could find anything about the Rite of Rising and the Four Apostles in the library. But I heard you.”

“Just this once, then, I won’t reprimand you for being out after hours.”

“Thank you, sir. Er, we’re meeting up right after breakfast tomorrow morning, by the Professor’s room.”

“Very well. I will see you then. I recommend you return to your bedroom immediately, however; the library will have to wait.”

The next morning, Seteth was waiting for them, in full armor and carrying a shield and spear that shimmered oddly in the light. Aelfric looked like he’d swallowed a lemon. Claude waited for one of them to say something, but neither of them did. Finally, Hilda arrived, and they all made their way down to the Abyss.

They were met by Constance, who was practically glowing with triumph. “I found a secret passage! It leads down below any of the explored areas, and we went just far enough down to determine that there are all sorts of complicated gates with functioning locking mechanisms down there, so—“abruptly, she saw Seteth and cut herself off. “…You must be Seteth.”

Seteth smiled at her. “I am. And you are the young woman who, unless I miss my guess, spent the whole night searching for entrances to secret passages in treacherous tunnels to help us find Flayn. You have my gratitude.”

Constance looked like she’d been hit over the head with a fish. “I…you’re welcome, sir?” 

Practically the entire group was staring at Seteth in shock. Hilda coughed. “Well, now that that’s out of the way, who’s up for exploring the dark, treacherous secret passage in search of potential kidnap victims or sacred necromantic cups!”

Bless Hilda’s ability to break tense moments. Several snorts of laughter were stifled by various hands, and everyone was much more relaxed as they proceeded to explore Constance’s newly-discovered passage.

Several hours later, with no sign of Flayn, everyone is starting to become dispirited (and even the Ashen Wolves have agreed that Professor Emrys’s decision to make sure they were well-supplied before starting the expedition was an excellent one, because otherwise they’d all be hungry and thirsty by now), Balthus spots the exit.

“Hey! Does that look like a chasm to anyone else? Because it looks pretty chasm-y to me.”

Everyone rushes over to see what Balthus is pointing at, and they all agree that it looks distinctly chasm-esque, and it is with much excitement that they venture out, finding themselves underneath the bridge spanning the ravine that separates Garreg Mach Monastery from the surrounding landscape.

(There is a slight delay when it transpires that Constance, exposed to sunlight, loses all self-esteem and optimism. Even Seteth is perturbed by this. After being reassured by Hapi that this is normal, Hilda suggests that Constance invest in a sturdy parasol, and even promises to make her one. Constance glumly says she’s sure it wouldn’t make any difference, and apologizes for worrying everyone, but then Seteth calmly holds his shield over her head, and she perks up immediately. Hilda informs her solemnly that she will make her the most beautiful parasol that has ever been. The other three ashen wolves fall into bickering about why none of them ever thought to try that. )

Then there is an appalling and endless parade of golems, which at least supports the idea that this is in fact the chasm of the bound, and Constance has to fight them without Seteth’s shield over her head because this is the first chance he has had to vent his frantic frustration at Flayn’s kidnapping since she disappeared, and everyone is very impressed. They finally manage to stop the flow of golems by fitting the magic key into the correct lock (it takes a couple of tries), and then there is a glowing wall with crest symbols on it (Constance identifies one as being her own), and an opening appears, out of which Constance pulls an ornate chalice. After a certain amount of academic debate, it is established that this definitely seems to be the chalice in question, though Seteth looks very grim. Of course, nothing can ever be easy, so they are chased by more golems all the way back to the abyss, and only Yuri’s quick thinking and Seteth’s skill with the gate mechanisms saves them from being trampled by golems.

They’re still catching their breath, safely back in the Abyss, when Yuri starts swearing. He’s holding a letter that was apparently left in the ‘classroom’, and he looks furious. Everyone clamors for an explanation, but he just hands the note to Seteth, who reads through it twice and growls, low and dangerous. “It’s from Aelfric. He thanks us for locating and retrieving the Chalice for him, and says that if we ever want to see Flayn alive again, we should meet him at moonrise tonight—with the chalice—at the ruins of the old Chapel. If we tell anyone, we’ll never see Flayn again.”

Claude blinks. “That makes _so much sense._ Of course, he would be the one Rhea would assign to searching the Abyss for Flayn, she doesn’t want anyone to know about this place, and he’d know that. So if he abducts Flayn, he gets permission to search the Abyss, but without tipping his hand, because _no one else hears about it._ Then we come along, and he gets us to do the searching _for him,_ and finally leaves a ransom note demanding the chalice in exchange for Flayn—no wonder he didn’t tell Seteth!”

Alva cuts in, then. “What do you mean, he didn’t tell Seteth?”

Seteth grimaces. “Young Claude here found me last night, correctly intuited by my behavior that Aelfric had _not_ in fact informed me of your discoveries, and gave me the message in his stead. I believed that it was simply that Aelfric did not want to risk my insisting on having the Knights of Seiros search this place with a fine tooth comb, or perhaps that Rhea had ordered that I not be told about this place, but now I must presume that his motivation was rather more sinister.”

Silence fell. “So…are we going to tell Lady Rhea?” Dimitri asked, tentatively.

Seteth scowled. “I think not. She has behaved unconscionably throughout—hiding the existence of the Abyss, even when Flayn was taken, consigning you all to live down here, ignored and forgotten? Failing to take basic precautions to secure the safety of the monastery inhabitants? Once Flayn was taken, if Aelfric came to her and told her he suspected she might be down here, she should have mobilized the knights to search. She should not have kept it secret—and this must be why she was so calm, repeatedly assuring me that _Flayn would be fine._ She was waiting for Aelfric to produce her on one of his ‘searches’. No, I think we will _not_ tell Rhea. Flayn is worth a lost and forgotten chalice that _never worked in the first place!_ ”

“So…we’re going? All of us?”

“The letter specifies that we all must come—I can only presume to ensure that none of us are lying in ambush.” Yuri confirmed, sounding exhausted.

Claude shook himself, running a hand through his hair with a laugh. “Hey, why the long faces? This is more or less what we were hoping for, yeah? A couple of days ago, we were no closer to finding Flayn than when we started, and now we have a letter from her captor promising to trade her for an object we have in our possession, at an established time and place. That sounds like progress to me!”

Edelgard blinked. Slowly, she started to smile. “So it does. Thank you, Claude, for reminding us of that.”

Alva chuckled. “Look at us, so busy being angry at being tricked that we lost track of the most important thing. Very well. How long do we have until moonrise? Enough time for a hot bath and a hot meal?”

Hilda groaned. “A hot bath! God, that sounds heavenly right now, I would _murder_ someone for a chance to get properly clean. Let’s do that.”

A chorus of assent filled the room. After a beat, Professor Emrys offered, “I move that Seteth holds on to the Chalice for the moment. Since he’s the one most invested in its safe delivery to the old chapel.”

Dryly, Alva added, “Also, he’s the least likely to be stopped and questioned, or to get in trouble for having it if we get caught.”

Claude snickered. “Yeah, I wouldn’t want to have to try to explain that one to the guards. Mercifully, it’s normal-cup sized, I’d hate to think what it would be like trying to smuggle some sort of enormous unwieldy abomination out to the ruined chapel. Honestly, I was expecting something big enough to bathe in, personally.”

Dimitri gave Claude a look of blank astonishment. “Big enough to bathe in? But it’s a chalice!”

“Yeah, a chalice that was made for the express purpose of resurrecting the dead! I figured it would have to be big enough to put the body in, right?”

“But, it’s called a chalice!”

Alva’s deadpan retort to Dimitri’s bluster came right on cue, cool and reasonable. “There's such a thing as euphemism. The sitz-bath of beginnings sounds far less impressive than the chalice of beginnings. Much more noble.”

Claude cackled. So did Hilda. Even Seteth looked amused, rather than scandalized, and with that, they all split up to get clean and dry and fed before sneaking out to the old chapel to hopefully retrieve Flayn.

Much later, it occurs to Claude that they’d all been idiots to fail to consider the idea that Aelfric, having heard Claude’s speculation about the possibility that Flayn had been kidnapped by someone who wanted the chalice, could easily have decided to play along with the idea, even if he hadn’t been responsible for Flayn’s kidnapping. This, however, was after the fiasco when Aelfric showed up at the ruined chapel without Flayn, promised that he’d tell them her location if they gave him the chalice, insisted the four ashen wolves be the ones to present it to him, and then warped away with them at the last minute without saying _anything about Flayn._

Mercifully, Seteth (though furious), had the authority to let them into the Holy Mausoleum, and while he refused to explain his conviction that Aelfric would have taken them there, it turned out to be correct, and they managed to stop Aelfric before he succeeded in draining all the life out of the four ashen wolves (who were apparently descendants of the four apostles, and whom Aelfric had been collecting for just this purpose, which was infuriating) to resurrect _Emrys’s Mother Sitri,_ who had apparently been a nun at the monastery (despite Jeralt’s claims) and whose body had been lying _perfectly preserved for over twenty years_ in the Abyss, despite the fact that there was a grave marking where a casket that was _supposed_ to contain her body was buried.

Of course, once they’d prevented him from committing multiple murder to resurrect a woman 21 years dead, Aelfric was forced to admit that he had no idea where Flayn was, had never known where she was, and had in fact only taken advantage of the search for Flayn to try to find the chalice of beginnings, and lied about it to get them to bring him the chalice and the four heirs of the apostles. Seteth looked like he was about to _completely_ lose his mind, and when Rhea arrived to see what was going on, he turned on her with all the fury of an avenging god, demanding to know what she thought she was doing and did she know what she’d done and how dared she and she had gone too far. Rhea looked rather taken aback, but repeatedly insisted “not in front of the students, Seteth” and eventually Seteth stormed out, saying he was going to go find Manuela because the Ashen Wolves needed medical attention.

Manuela was, however, missing. She had last been seen by Jeralt, carrying what looked like Jeritza’s mask, down by the stables. This led to a frantic search, at which point it was discovered that no one had seen Jeritza all day, and that led to the discovery that Jeritza’s room contained the unconscious body of Manuela, plus the entrance to a secret staircase down into another section of the Abyss, or, well, the secret substructure of the Monastery (Claude wasn’t sure if it counted as part of the Abyss.) Edelgard was sent to help carry the unconscious Manuela to the infirmary, but Seteth and the rest of the students present proceeded down the staircase to an enormous underground chamber, in much better repair than the Abyss, where they found an unconscious Flayn, another unconscious girl, and the creep with the scythe, plus a ton of mages and other armed minions. Seteth went straight to Flayn and refused to let anyone near her, but couldn’t exactly carry her (let alone the other girl) to safety through/past such a mass of armed enemies, so he just kind of stood there and fended off anyone who got too close while the students took down the room full of enemies. Particular credit went to Alva, who seemed to be rather preoccupied chasing the Scythe Creep (who was apparently called ‘The Death Knight’) around the room, cutting down and/or blasting anyone who got in her way, yelling her head off the whole time about kidnapping innocents and what the hell Jeritza (which, fair, it seemed pretty clear that Jeritza was the one under all that ridiculous costume) and goddamnit what made him think this was acceptable much less a good idea and a truly remarkable list of things she was going to do to him when she caught up to him, until finally he was the only one left. At that point, someone else in weird black and red armor showed up, ordered the Death Knight to Stop Right Now and Leave in a tone of voice that said, fairly plainly, _this is not acceptable,_ and the Death Knight just said “Understood” and teleported away. Then, New Armor Weirdo introduced himself as the Flame Emperor, who was going to ‘reforge the world’, promised to meet them again (like that wasn’t ominous) and vanished as abruptly as he came, leaving a panting, furious Alva and a room full of slightly dinged up students and Seteth with two unconscious damsels in a weird secret underground chamber full of teleportation pads.

Claude decided he wanted to sleep for the next week.

(Over the next few days, several _blazing rows_ were held between Rhea and Seteth, because Seteth was not about to forget or forgive the things he had learned about Rhea’s activities and abuses of authority, and the fact that she’d endangered Flayn _and then lied about it,_ and also he had reached the limit of how much suspicious information he was willing to let slide about her history with Professor Emrys, because _seriously._ In the end, Rhea refused to answer most of his questions, and claimed that it was okay because they got Flayn back, safe and sound. Seteth thought of a young woman screaming at a lunatic with a scythe about how this was _not okay,_ and a young man, awkwardly approaching him in his office late at night because he thought he might have information about Flayn’s disappearance that Rhea had not thought he deserved to know, and Jeralt bristling every time Rhea got too close to his daughter, frantic to protect her from _Rhea,_ Rhea who had violated the taboo, because based on what Aelfric had said about the baby—and if she was the same baby, a baby that Jeralt had been forced to fake the death of in a fire to get her safely away from Rhea in the _first place,_ a baby that grew up to be a calm, severe young woman who had led the way fearlessly into dark places in search of Flayn, who had apparently been the first one to insist that Seteth be told, and Seteth looked at Rhea, who _still_ didn’t believe she’d done anything wrong, and wondered if she’d always been like this, and he just hadn’t noticed, and if not, when exactly she had fractured past repairing. 

In the end, Seteth agreed to stay. Because he didn’t trust Rhea not to do more unconscionable things if he left. But he spoke to Flayn, and told her what Rhea had done, and she agreed to go back into hiding, and Seteth took a few days to bring her to Indech, who agreed to watch over and protect his little niece until such a time as it was safe for her to return. Seteth had to explain, again, what Rhea had done, what he had cause to believe she had and would attempt again, and Indech was quite properly horrified. When Seteth returned without Flayn, Rhea was indignant, but Seteth was so far past caring about Rhea’s indignation that he nearly struck her. _I do not trust you,_ he said. _The girl Alva and the boy Claude did more to help me find her than you did, and you are her_ family. _Do not speak to me until you are willing to answer my questions._

Needless to say, no one else ever heard about those arguments, and the rest of the inhabitants of the Monastery were simply informed that Flayn had gone to stay with some distant relatives, since they still did not know for what purpose she had been taken. It wasn’t even, technically, a lie.)

(Edelgard has nightmares for the entire week after their expeditions into the Abyss, and Jeritza’s hidden room. In her dreams, instead of Flayn, she’s searching for her siblings, for Alva, and she arrives to find her dead, or lost again in her own mind, and she wakes up struggling not to scream. After one such evening, she goes up onto the roof, hoping the breeze will calm her down, and find Emrys there: She finds herself revealing the secret of her second crest, of what they had taken her and her siblings apart for, and how she had thought Alva lost forever until they found her in the Red Canyon. She tells her more than is, probably, wise, but she can’t bring herself to regret it.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here marks the point where I basically take canon and throw it out the window. I didn't plan to! I never even really meant to bring the Ashen Wolves into this, but even without the DLC, there's enough lampshading and foreshadowing about the Abyss in the normal game that I had to do SOMETHING. The idea that Rhea knows about the Abyss and doesn't investigate it when Flayn goes missing is just absurd, and Seteth clearly doesn't know that there are these secret passages under the Monastery, and it occurred to me that he probably didn't even know anything about the whole Chalice of Beginnings thing (I have some complicated head canons about Rhea's attempts to resurrect Sothis, some of which have to do with the system set up in _Genealogy of the Holy War,_ because there's a lot of things in that which make so much of Rhea's behavior make a truly horrifying amount of sense), and I didn't know how much I wanted Seteth to step up and demand answers of Rhea and stand up to her insanity until suddenly he was doing it? Claude and Alva, for all your canon-fixing needs. (Honestly I hadn't meant to drag Seteth in like this, but then everyone went "yeah we need to tell him we might have a lead about Flayn" and even after Aelfric threw a wrench in that, Claude insisted. 
> 
> ...I suddenly am fighting down a vague impulse to ship Seteth/Constance, which is so weird I have no _words_ , guys. 
> 
> Then, of course, I have to deal with the fact that Aelfric dumped some really important information about Jeralt and Sitri on everyone, ignoring the fact that Rhea and Jeralt were trying to keep that secret, and Claude and Alva have smelled a rat. Oh, and I really tried to have Flayn stay, but Seteth kept threatening to just take her and vanish into hiding entirely, and it was only by appealing to his sense of duty that I avoided that (I needed SOMEONE sane in the church) and even then, he wasn't about to let Flayn stay. So: Indech.


	6. The Battle of the Eagle And The Lion

Over the next month, house rivalries start to pick up again in preparation for the three-way battle at Grondor field. Over the last few months, the boundaries between the three houses had faded and blurred almost out of existence: Felix and Sylvain in particular maintained an odd sort of dual membership between the Black Eagle and the Blue Lion houses, while Lysithea has been functionally adopted by Alva, and spends more of her time with the Black Eagles than she does with her fellow Golden Deer. Moreover, at Seteth’s emphatic insistence, the four Ashen Wolves are being folded into the three ‘official’ houses, with Balthus joining the Golden Deer, Constance the Black Eagles, Yuri retaking his place as a member of the Blue Lion house, and Hapi, after a certain amount of debate and nervousness, joining the Black Eagles, though she asks to be allowed to sit out the battle of the Eagle and the Lion, which leads to all three of the others seconding the request. This is granted, and it’s arranged that they will simply be spectators. Meanwhile, Constance’s life is made much simpler by Hilda’s following through on her promise to make her a parasol, producing an absolutely charming confection in pale blue, edged in lace, which Constance carries _everywhere._

It turns out that the other unconscious girl rescued from the Death Knight’s subterranean lair is named Monica, and was a Black Eagle student the previous year until she went missing (nobody searched for _her,_ Claude thinks sourly.) She’s been folded back into the Black Eagles class, allowed to finish her studies and graduate with the rest of them, but Claude is uneasy because _Alva_ is so obviously uncomfortable about her. She even warns him to be careful around her—“Look, all I’m saying is that we have no idea what happened to her over the last year, and she’s bounced back freakishly well. I don’t trust her, and I don’t like the way she hovers around El. I was taken, once, and I went mad, and I had to make a deal with a devil to come back as sane as I am. Monica is either lying, or she’s damaged somewhere you can’t see.”

“Care to elaborate on that?”

“No, not really.”

“Fair enough. So, hey, have you made any progress getting Jeralt to talk about what he knows about Professor Emrys? And the whole thing with the creepy perfectly preserved body of his wife, and his lying about when and where Emrys was born?”

“ _No._ He just shuts up like a clam! I don’t get it. We go ‘hey, so, you’re clearly uncomfortable with Lady Rhea being around your daughter, which is totally valid because Lady Rhea is _creepy obsessed,_ can you tell us anything about that so we can help?’ and he just goes ‘sorry, can’t help you’! I’m thinking we should try asking around, see if Alois knows anything. Maybe ask about Sitri, too. I don’t _think_ Seteth will let Lady Rhea have us executed for asking awkward questions about Jeralt and his wife, but we should still probably be discreet, if possible.”

“Hey, you know me, discretion is my middle name!”

“I’m pretty sure your middle name is _menace.”_

“I think that might be the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

…And Claude decides he’s more interested in The Mystery Of Teach than arguing about Monica (especially since his instincts also start blaring alarms when she’s around, she’s a little uncanny valley and he doesn’t like it), but The Mystery Of Teach is proving thoroughly intractable _._ Alois, always prone to rambling cheerfully (especially while intoxicated), divulges the fact that Jeralt had apparently at some point gotten a transfusion of crest-bearing blood which resulted in him _no longer aging,_ and mentions that he had once drunkenly claimed to be over 100 years old. Claude would ignore that, only everyone he talks to agrees that in the 20 years since Jeralt left the Knights of Seiros, he has not aged _at all._ Hanneman, when asked, denies that people with crests have noticeably greater life expectancies than people without crests, as far as he knows. But Jeralt definitely credited his agelessness to crest-blood-transfusion. (They also ask Hanneman if it’s possible to transmit a crest via blood transfusion, if anything happens if you give a non-crest-person blood from someone who does have a crest, and Hanneman basically goes “Blood transfusions are rare and dangerous and basically have two outcomes as far as I know, either it works and the blood is accepted and nothing changes, or the blood is too different from that of the patient and their body rejects it and that’s bad. You cannot change someone’s blood by transfusion!” and they are forced to drop that line of questioning. It doesn’t answer any of the questions they have about Emrys, but it does raise a few more.) 

They’ve made minimal progress by the time the Battle of The Eagle And The Lion comes around, but they’re in good spirits when they head out anyway. Everyone is, and the general consensus is that this is going to be fun—and it is! A little chaotic, since at this point most of the students from _every_ house are in the habit of obeying any order Emrys gives without question or hesitation, which is problematic when they’re supposed to be _opposing_ her, but fun. In the end, the Black Eagles win, and Claude jokes that he would have been better off if he’d just followed his instincts and defected to Teach’s team in the first place. (Lorenz starts hollering about honor and treason, but everyone ignores him.)

When they get back to the Monastery, they’re tired, dirty, and cheerful, and everyone’s laughing. He doesn’t even mind that, having lost, the Golden Deer and Blue Lions are going to be responsible for restoring the entire Grondor Field, so that the harvest won’t suffer. At dinner, everyone’s happy and laughing, and the Black Eagle students are giddy with their triumph, and someone convinces Dorothea to serenade them with an operatic aria—she agrees, and then, halfway through, Alva joins her, raising her voice in counterpoint, and Dorothea is _thrilled_ —Claude knew Alva could sing, of course he did, she sang more than _Annette_ did, in bits and scraps, but he didn’t know that Alva could sing like _this,_ filling the whole dining hall with the sound of her voice, and then she and Dorothea are singing a crazy comic duet that has everyone in whoops—Dorothea is a classic operatic soprano, but Alva has rich, warm contralto, and she’s taking the tenor part like she was born for it, and the two of them keep singing, joined occasionally by Ferdinand (who has a surprisingly good voice, and apparently knows every opera ever written) and once by Lorenz (whose voice is terrible, and gets shouted down fairly well immediately), and even Annette and Mercy join in. Eventually, they all stumble off to bed, laughing and exhausted, and Claude falls asleep and dreams of opera singers and glorious nonsense.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is possibly the shortest chapter yet, but honestly it's kind of filler? But at least it marks Alva's first mention to Claude of her having made a deal with a devil. Oh, and mentions of the whole blood transfusion thing, which I'm not sure what to do about because this is not a society that has the tech for blood transfusions, I don't actually know how they do that?? But, hey! Jeralt's immortality has been mentioned!


	7. A Flame In The Darkness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Remire. (Also the White Heron Cup.) As a bonus: Alva finally tells Claude about Neith.

Claude hears about what happened at Remire from Lysithea, who had been coopted for the mission; he’d been loaned Ferdinand in exchange, who was an excellent sport about it, and their mission had gone fairly smoothly: as losers of the battle of the eagle and the lion, the golden deer and blue lion houses had been tasked with cleaning up the mess their mock battle had made of Grondor Field, which was after all important farmland. They’d come back, tired and dirty but cheerful, to find the Black Eagles group looking hollow-eyed, escorting a group of battered civilians that Claude didn’t have to think twice about labelling _refugees._ Mercy, who had also been borrowed from the Lions on account of being the only student who could reliably cast Restore, walked up to Annette, grabbed her in a tight hug, and burst into tears, refusing to either let go or answer any of Annette’s increasingly frantic questions.

Lysithea looked coldly furious, and if she didn’t also look more exhausted than he’d ever seen her, Claude would have worried that she was going to blow something up with a poorly contained spell any minute. Emrys, for once shaken in her eternal calm, seemed to be doing her best to comfort her, but Lysithea in one of these moods did not want comfort. Claude took a step forward, tentatively, and hesitated. This looked bad. Ferdinand had choked back an exclamation and looked like he didn’t know what to do with himself, while Leonie stared at Jeralt, whose body language was broadcasting his desire to grab his child and never let go in a way none of them had ever seen before.

Claude didn’t know whether to bless or curse Raphael when he burst out “You lot look awful! You must be ravenous, a little hot food will make you all feel as right as rain!”

Ignatz facepalmed. “Raphael, sometimes food—”

Alva looked up, her jaw firming from where she’d been in quiet conversation with Edelgard. “No, he’s not entirely wrong. Cocoa all round, I think, and I have a box of bonbons in my room that I was saving for a special occasion. Heat and sugar.”

Caspar looked at her like she was crazy. “You can think of eating, after—after—”

Edelgard stirred, gave Caspar a warning look, and said simply “Hot and sweet, to take all our minds off of it—that sounds lovely. Professor?”

Emrys nodded, sharply. “That…yes. Yes, that’s probably best. Everyone, please, we’ll answer questions once we’re feeling a bit more human. Annette, Mercy’s just…we’ve had a rather frightful day, and she got some of the worst of it. She just needs a hug rather urgently at the moment. Caspar, if you want to make yourself useful, go run ahead to the Dining Hall and warn them that we’re incoming, and to prepare as much cocoa and hot soup as they can. We’ll follow as soon as we can.”

Surprisingly enough, the hot soup and cocoa did help. Claude eventually managed to get the story out of Lysithea, after she demolished an entire plateful of sugary candies that made Claude’s teeth hurt just to look at them. It was bad. It was, in fact, worse than he could have dreamed, and it made him feel sick to think of. Worst of all were the little things she let slip around the corners, that made him suspect that she knew something personally about this—something about “the same goddess-damned robes.”

Alva pulled him aside, later, and warned him that Lysithea was likely to have screaming nightmares, and if she did, not to ask too many questions—she gave him more of those tooth-aching sweets and told him to give them to Lysithea if he thought she needed them. It was sobering. He asked her if it was the Flame Emperor again, and she hesitated, then shook her head. “He was there—he talked to Jeralt and Professor Emrys—but he said he wasn’t involved. Said, in fact, that he was determined to destroy those responsible, and asked Professor Emrys to join he—him. “

Claude caught the slip, and silently filed away the fact that Alva had nearly called the flame emperor _her_ to be examined at a later date. “She refused?”

Alva sighed. “She said that she doesn’t work in the dark—that, if the flame emperor wanted her help, he’d have to be willing to stand in the light. That justice has to be seen, and if it isn’t seen, it’s just revenge. It was rather dramatic. I think the flame emperor would have said something else, but they were interrupted, and he vanished.”

Claude frowned. “Do you think he was telling the truth?”

“Honestly? It’s hard to say. Insofar as it goes, I’d say yes, I think he was telling the truth—but only as far as it goes. Like if you were to come to me and ask for my help stealing the key to the kitchens, so you could steal some sweets for Lysithea; that might be perfectly true, but it mightn’t mean you didn’t want the key to the kitchens for other reasons, too.”

That got her a raised eyebrow. “I’m not sure if I should be flattered or insulted that you just compared me to the Flame Emperor.”

Alva snorted, and rose. “Take it how you will; I’m going to bed. I’d appreciate it if you didn’t tell anyone else what we talked about, however.”

Claude laughed. “If you thought for a minute that I would, you’d never have told me in the first place.”

The next few weeks were a blur of helping traumatized kids, listening to Lorenz whine about Lysithea taking up the mage training grounds all the time (Claude pointed out that if he wanted her to vent her steam by blowing things up with her magic elsewhere, that was his business, but he’d prefer her doing it safely in the practice rooms—this shut him up nicely), and preparations for the ball and the white heron cup. After a certain amount of debate, Claude decided to divert Lorenz by making him the Golden Deer dance contest representative, and sending him off to practice dancing, instead. Unfortunately, this meant that the Golden Deer were unlikely to win, but once word had got around that the Black Eagles had chosen Dorothea, he had resigned himself to losing anyway. Annette had volunteered in the Blue Lion house, and apparently she and Dorothea were getting on like a house on fire, with Dorothea teaching her basic opera singing and the two of them frequently practicing together—Felix’s conniption fit when he caught Sylvain admiring them in their skimpy practice outfits was a thing of beauty. Sylvain, ever skilled at interpersonal relationships, assured Felix that _of course_ he wasn’t looking at Annette, he was admiring Dorothea, and then tried to backtrack with _not that Annette’s not worth admiring, of course—_ but by then it was too late. Annette seemed totally bewildered by the whole thing, and Dorothea quietly egged them on, enjoying every minute of it. (Hilda, watching from the sidelines, laughed herself sick.) Lorenz tried to convince the girls to let him join their practices, but they refused point blank and Claude didn’t blame them.

In the middle of all of this, of course, were the romantic dramas of any group of young adults coming up on a social event, with the added complications of the Goddess Tower superstition that of course made the rounds as the month went on. Claude pointedly _did not look_ at Alva when that came up, no sir. He _did_ watch Emrys and Edelgard continue to dance around each other, but the conversation he overheard when Dorothea asked Petra to meet her in the Tower that night, only for Petra to get it in her head that they were going to _spy on the antics of any other students who went_ only served to convince him that going to the tower at all would be a terrible plan.

The night before the ball, everyone gathered together for the festival, all three houses together. It was…nice, Claude thought. _I can use this,_ he decided. Not immediately, of course, but…such a pity he wasn’t poised to start moving, yet, or he’d use this group as a base to work from. They’d scatter after they graduated, and while he’d have the connections he’d formed, it wouldn’t be the same, not really. Unless…

“This may sound impetuous. Perhaps irresponsible. Almost certainly impossible. But we're gonna do it anyway. In exactly five years' time, let's promise to meet again, right here at the monastery. All of us. It’ll be the millennium festival, the biggest party in the history of Garreg Mach.”

And as smiles broke over everyone’s faces, and voices from all three houses chimed in to pledge their attendance, Claude thought, _Perfect_.

(To absolutely no one's surprise, Dorothea wins the White Heron cup, Lorenz makes a spectacular fool of himself, and Claude winds up taking a leaf out of Petra's book and hiding near the Goddess Tower to see who comes to meet whom, after being recruited by Alva to dance very vigorously with Emrys in hopes of getting her a bit hot and out of breath, so as to encourage her to slip out to the tower for some fresh air. Claude isn't _really_ surprised to see a fondly exasperated Dorothea and dragging a baffled and kind of disappointed Petra out of the tower--Dorothea wouldn't want to ruin someone else's romantic moment, after all--but he _is_ surprised when Caspar and Linhardt go up. Sadly, even though Felix did manage to get his courage up enough to ask Annette to dance, he did not ask her to the Goddess Tower, which is a pity because if anyone's crush is even more obvious than Edelgard's, it's Felix's. But Claude's efforts in dancing with Emrys paid off, and she does in fact spend a solid 15 minutes up there with Edelgard. Alva is delighted. Claude doesn't ask Alva to climb the tower with him, but he does convince a flushed and delighted-with-victory Alva to climb up on the roof of the monastery to stargaze with him. It's a wonderful night.) 

* * *

After Lysithea’s confession about the blood reconstruction surgery and her life expectancy, and her quiet admission of her suspicions about Edelgard and Alva, Claude very quietly freaks out. Once he’s done panicking, he carefully plans how he wants to go about cornering Alva to get some answers. In the end, he leaves a note on her bed, asking her to meet him in the goddess tower after lights-out.

When Alva arrives, Claude is already waiting. She’s smiling when she sees him, but her smile falters when she sees the look on his face. It’s unusually somber and cold, for Claude.

“So. This is something serious, then.”

“Lysithea told me about her second crest. How she got it, and what it did to her.”

Alva winced. “I suppose if I said I had no idea what you were talking about…?”

Claude’s glaring now, outright. “I would tell you to stop playing games. _Empire mages_ did that to her. You told me, once, that you made a deal with the devil. I need to know that the devil in question wasn’t the people who did that to her—and to you and Edelgard.”

Alva blinked. “That—okay, not what I expected. No, my devil is called Neith, and has nothing to do with them. Edelgard and I hate the people responsible every bit as much as Lysithea, and are determined to destroy them. I can’t necessarily tell you that much more about that, not yet, but I can promise that the only reason they still live is that we aren’t yet in a position to eliminate them. I won’t lie and tell you we aren’t _cooperating_ with them, in the short term and in some things, but only because we cannot escape them, yet. And, of course, if I want to be able to someday reverse the damage, I need copies of their research, which means going carefully. We had _nothing_ to do with the kidnapping of Flayn and what happened in Remire. They might call themselves imperial mages and wear our colors, they are not our people, I swear it.”

Claude frowned. “…Tell me about your deal with this Neith, and how it came about.”

Alva looked at him. After a long, thoughtful minute, she sighed. “Before I do, I am going to need you to swear to me that you will not repeat any of this without my express permission—and know that bargains made with me and oaths made to me are rather more binding than your average person.”

Claude blinked. That…sounded odd. “Binding in what way?”

Alva gave a wan smile. “Depends on how you do it. The simplest way, which I would frankly prefer, would simply render you incapable of breaking your word: if you opened your mouth to try, you would simply find that words did not come.”

A vague bell went off in the back of Claude’s mind. “…Are you physically incapable of lying?”

Alva responded, dryly, “Would you take my word for it if I said ‘yes’?”

“That depends. Are you saying ‘yes’?”

There was a pause. Then: “…I find it rather difficult to tell a direct falsehood, but am rather skilled at avoiding _having_ to do so. I cannot swear falsely. I can…say things that are untrue. Which you know, since you’ve heard me tell stories.”

Claude nodded, slowly. “Alright. If you’ll swear to tell me the truth, I’ll swear to keep your secrets. How do you want me to swear?”

“Repeat after me: I, Claude von Riegan, give my sworn word and bond that I shall not speak or write of any of the secrets Alva von Hresvelg will impart to me between now and when we leave this room with anyone who is not already aware of them, unless expressly given permission.”

Claude dutifully repeated the oath. As he spoke the final word, there was a flash of light, as brief as lightning but as dim as a single candle.

Alva nodded, then grimaced. “And I, Alva von Hresvelg, give my sworn word that everything I will tell you between now and when we leave this room will be the truth.” Another dim flash, and then Alva sat down on the floor, back to the wall and knees pressed to her chest, and patted a spot on the floor to her left. “Sit down, this is going to take a while. Please don’t interrupt me until I’m done, this is…not easy.”

Claude slowly sat in the indicated spot, watching Alva’s face as she stared blankly into space, collecting her thoughts. “Lysithea was—I think it was some sort of practice run, they wanted to create an ideal emperor candidate and had limited subjects of the royal line, so they started with other people. The Emperor did not give permission, nor was he informed. When they got the results they wanted, they moved on to us—and they had to perform a coup, to take all real power from the Emperor before they could do it, because he would not have countenanced such a thing and they could not hide from him what they were doing to his children. They took us, in the night, and told everyone it was a plague—“ Alva broke off, looked thoughtful for a moment. “I think there might have actually been a plague, at the time, and I wouldn’t put it past them to spread disease on purpose to prevent people asking too many questions. El was not in the capital at the time, her uncle—her mother’s brother—got wind of the coup, and smuggled them out. They claimed sanctuary in Faerghus, and it took a year or two for the bastards in Enbarr to find a way to get her back. She and I were the only two with a minor crest, but they didn’t care: they used us all, and…we all failed, but El. For me, it didn’t work because—well, because I’m not entirely human. My mother is descended from an elf who fell in love with a mortal singer—oh, many generations back. It would never have even been noticeable if they hadn’t tried to implant a second crest, but there’s just enough elf in me that when they tried, it—well, woke the latent abilities no one knew I had.” Alva, who until that point had been staring blindly into space, paused and looked at Claude, adding in a matter-of-fact tone, “Incidentally, that’s why oaths to me are more binding, if you were wondering. Words are things of power, to the fae, and I’m…just enough fae for it to matter, now.” She looked away, her eyes unfocused again, and when she continued, it was again in the soft, vacant voice she’d fallen into when she’d said _we all failed_. “My memories of that time are confused: I was being torn apart, and I lost my moorings...I could hear the cries and the agonies of my siblings, and to distract them and myself, I sang, and I told stories, for something to focus on, for a form of escape. But then I lost track. I saw and heard things—people—who were not there, who were not real, who had never been…windows into fantastic places…I was lost, in the dark, in my own mind. I dreamed. I kept singing, because my voice was all that was left of me. Then, one day, a spirit came up to me and looked straight at me—Neith. Neith found me, in that place between worlds. She heard me singing, you see, and came to find the singer. She looked at me, and she said ‘it is a long time since I have seen a fae-child, a child of the sídhe, but I know the voice of an elf-singer when I hear it. What are you doing here?’ And I told her I did not know. She asked me, ‘How did you come here, then?’ and I told her I didn’t know.”

Claude felt the lump in his throat, which had been growing as he listened, go hard. He swallowed, roughly. Alva’s voice, as she recounted the exchange with Neith, had gained an odd note of simplicity, like a small child. _And I told her I didn’t know._ From some people, that might have been an evasion, indicating not that she had been ignorant but simply that she had claimed to be, but he didn’t think that was the case here. In this vague, distant figure, speaking in a child’s voice, he thought he could see the echoes of the lost girl she must have been, and he doubted she had been capable of deception, even if it didn’t count as a ‘direct falsehood’.

Suddenly, a little life sparked in Alva’s eyes, and she threw a mischievous sideways smile at Claude when she continued. “ _Then,_ she asked me ‘well, do you know your name, at least?’ and I said ‘Yes, and I know better to give it to something like you, thanks’!”

Claude choked. _Yeah, if she hadn’t wanted to say, she’d have refused to answer, not pretended not to know._ And he could imagine her, lost and confused, faced with something unknown and powerful, still having the spirit to sass it. Alva’s smile faded, but thankfully, the remote look didn’t return to her eyes, not entirely.

“Even then, with all I’d forgotten and lost of myself, I remembered what my mother told me about names. Anyway, Neith laughed at me, and said as much as she enjoyed my singing, she didn’t like the idea of leaving a child lost in the void between worlds, and anyway I’d given her music unasked for and leaving me here at the mercy of whatever might come after her was poor payment for elf-song. Which seemed reasonable, at the time—I wasn’t getting out of there by myself, and Neith didn’t seem to be a truly _malicious_ creature, so. Anyway, I told her that I was a daughter of Ionius von Hresvelg IX, Emperor of Adrestia, and last I knew I was being held captive in a dungeon under the palace while wicked people experimented on me and my siblings, and I would give her my name if she promised not to bind me against my will or harm my family. Neith agreed, so I told her my name was Alva von Hresvelg, and Neith went and found my body, saw what was happening—what had happened—and she came back. She told me…” Here, Alva hesitated, before continuing: “…She told me I should have died, that my body was dying, and all she could do was show me the way on.”

Abruptly, all the levity drained from the room. _She told me I should have died._ Claude wanted to say something, but caught himself in time. Instead, he reached out a hand and rested it on her shoulder, where it hunched forward, reassuring himself that she was, in fact, warm and alive under his hand. Alva looked up at him for a moment, startled, gave a brief smile, weak but grateful, and went on.

“I asked her if any of my siblings had survived. She told me that all my other siblings were beyond help, except El. _El was alive._ So I asked if she was safe, if she was free—I thought I remembered her voice, but perhaps I had imagined it, perhaps they hadn’t found her after all, I never did see her—but Neith said no, they had her, but she had survived the procedure with her sanity intact, that it had worked on her. She was out of the dungeon, at least, but she was walking a dangerous path. She showed me. And that…that changed everything. I wasn’t going to leave El to face them alone, El was mine and I couldn’t _abandon_ her! So I told Neith I wasn’t passing on, not while El needed me. But I couldn’t get back on my own, so I made a deal with Neith, that she would return me to my body, restore it, and give me access to certain of her powers and abilities, and in exchange, she gets my body when I die.”

Claude stared. “She gets your _body?_ ”

Alva laughed. “Well, to be strictly accurate, she gets to make _herself_ a body _out of_ my body when I’m _about_ to die, and the whole thing is a lot more complicated, but that’s the gist of it.”

Claude looked at this young woman, and thought about the story she’d told him. It wasn’t complete, obviously, but it was still more information than he had expected her to give him. He wondered, suddenly, how much of this Edelgard knew about. Distantly, he heard his own voice, asking Alva who else knew about her deal with Neith.

Alva raised an eyebrow. “Well, Neith knows, obviously, and El knows a bit—just that I met a powerful spirit called Neith when my mind was wandering, and I made a bargain with her to let me return to myself. Hubert, too, because he wouldn’t stop considering me a threat. I’ve told them that the price is mine to pay, and I can’t escape the contract except by dying, and also that it’s private and personal. That’s…about it, though.”

_But you told me,_ Claude thought, astonished. _You’ve not told anyone else, but you told me. Just because I asked._

_What would it have been like to meet you before they broke you?_ Claude wondered. Before he even realized he was going to ask, the question slipped out. “What did you look like, before?”

Alva looked honestly startled; evidently, that wasn’t a question she had expected. “Of all the—why on earth do you want to know?”

Claude wasn’t really sure how to answer that. “I just…” _I was trying to picture the person you were, before all this._ “I was just thinking how dramatic you look in the moonlight, like a ghost or a moon maiden, and I was wondering if you had always looked so unearthly.”

That…came out sounding rather ruder than he meant it to, but let it stand. Alva’s expression was some complicated thing he couldn’t quite read, and then a second later she snorted and punched him lightly on the shoulder. “You’re an idiot, you know that? Of all the tactless questions…” She got to her feet, and Claude figured that this meant confession hour was over. He rose himself, protesting. “Hey, I had to break the mood somehow!”

He was still brushing himself off when he heard her voice, terribly soft and very sad, give him an answer. “…I was always dramatic, actually. I had flaming red hair and dark gray eyes—I remember, when I saw what I’d become…I thought I’d been burned to ash.”

_Of course you did,_ Claude thought, remembering stories of beautiful bird women who represented truth and justice and virtue and purity, who burned to ashes every thousand years and were reborn. _What a fool I was to think you could have been anything else._

And somewhere, unseen and unheard and unfelt, Neith watched. She thought, _You’ll do quite nicely._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm honestly debating if I want to let Jeralt die or not. Like, I could save him? I'd been sticking close to canon, but then I threw that out the window when Flayn was kidnapped and I dragged in the Ashen Wolves and Seteth decided he wanted to be a Major Character. (Which is nice, I like having at least one church person who isn't a horrible person.) I'm kinda thinking I might just have him be _grievously wounded_ and in a coma for a while? TBD.


	8. Bread and Salt

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've moved things around, some of you may have noticed, so that Lysithea tells Claude about her second crest etc a day or two after the ball, and Monica's attack happens a couple nights after the confrontation between Claude and Alva--I actually forgot that Jeralt's death, canonically, happens _the same night_ as the ball, and didn't want to overhaul my timeline to accommodate that. (Similarly, way back at the beginning, I forgot that only three days pass between you picking a class and the mock battle--the way I wrote it, there's a solid month.) 
> 
> Anyway, I like this flow better.

Two nights later, during dinner, the alarm goes up that there are demonic beasts at the old Chapel, and at least a dozen students are missing, last seen heading in that direction. Everyone rushes out to fend them off, and they succeed, though it’s a hollow victory since it turns out that the demonic beasts had themselves been students.

And then Monica stabs Jeralt. 

Emrys was crying as she stared down at her father’s face, her father whom she had been unable to save, even with the power of Sothis, her father—

There was a commotion, and suddenly she was shoved out of the way by a furious Alva. She turned, anger rising in her like a tide, to throw Alva off of her _dying father,_ but then she processed what she was seeing. Alva was holding Jeralt carefully, with an aura of _furious healer_ about her, and—shoving something into Jeralt’s mouth? “You’re not dying on my watch! Eat this. _Swallow it.”_

When he finally managed to swallow whatever it was, he gasped, and Alva continued, in a voice like steel. “Now, give me your name.”

Beside Emrys, Sothis hissed in sudden understanding. Then, as a furious Leonie made to grab Alva’s shoulder and demand what she was doing, Sothis yelped. “Don’t let her interrupt them!” and Emrys was moving before she finished the thought, dragging Leonie back, and then a dome of light appeared, separating Alva and Jeralt from the rest of the crowd, cutting them off, and as the watchers realized they could no longer hear what was being said inside the bubble, the commotion increased.

Ignoring the building chaos outside Neith’s shield, Alva glared at Jeralt. When he still did not respond, staring up at Alva blankly, she snapped out in a tone of fury, “Give me your _name_ , Jeralt Eisner _. Say it!”_

Jeralt, confused and in pain and stubborn withall, gasped, “what—“

Alva could feel him slipping away, she was running out of time, and so she gathered all the power she had, every scrap of it, and snarled at him, putting all the command in her voice she could manage, “If you want to live, _you will give me your name!”_

Jeralt’s eyes went impossibly wider, and he choked out, “Jeralt—Reus--Eisner—“

Alva, practically glowing now, cut him off. “Then, as you have eaten of my bread and salt, made by my hand and given freely, and as you have given me your name, I bind thee to my service, Jeralt Eisner, _and I hereby forbid you to die!”_

There was a great flash of light, and a moment of terrible, frozen stillness, and suddenly Jeralt found that he could take a deep breath, that the pain was receding. Alva was panting above him, and the dome of light that held back all the spectators faded. “Good. That will hold, then.” She flashed an exhausted smile at Emrys, still holding Leonie by the elbow. “Sorry, but there wasn’t enough time to explain. He’ll live, now.”

Emrys didn’t even stop to think before rushing forward to help her still-weak father to his feet. As Alva had indicated, the wound was already mostly-healed. Trembling with relief, she buried her face in his chest, and felt a great sob fill her throat. Her father’s arms came up and folded around her, and she found she had no words left. Softly, as softly as he had spoken to her when she was a tiny child, he whispered, “Hey, now. It’s alright. I’m fine. You heard the lady, I’m going to be alright. Let’s go back to the Monastery, sound good?”

Still unable to force words past the lump in her throat, Emrys just nodded against her father’s chest.

Back at the Monastery, after being looked over by a very confused Manuela, Jeralt looked up from where his daughter was still pressed up against his side to where an exhausted Alva had half-collapsed on a nearby infirmary bed. “Now that it’s been established that whatever you did worked, and we have some privacy, care to explain how you managed that? Because I have never heard of anything _like_ that, and I’ve seen a lot of healing.”

Alva snorted. “I got lucky. I don’t think I could do it again, and it only worked because I happened to help with the baking today, and when we were called away from dinner, I shoved the roll I was holding in my bag without thinking. Bread and salt, made by my own hand, and your true name, willingly given—it’s an old, old law, but I had just enough power to force the binding to hold. I couldn’t do it again; I barely managed it this time. I’ll be weak for days, after this. So will you.”

“What does that mean, the binding held? You said you bound me to your service?”

“It means—well, it means you’re mine, basically. The bread and salt to put you in my debt, and the name to give me power. If I give you an order, you’ll have to obey, until one of us dies, or you win free of my service—which is a bit tricky. For the time being, I owe you my protection, and you owe me your fealty. I’m sorry about that, but it was the only thing I could think of that had a chance of working, and, well.”

“So I _can_ die? That I-forbid-you-to-die thing isn’t permanent?”

“No. It only worked because—well, because a binding like that _remakes_ you, in some ways. Under ordinary circumstances, it would have made you a little faster, a little stronger, a little longer-lived—in this case, I focused everything I had on making you _whole._ ”

Finally finding her voice, Emrys managed to choke out a heartfelt “ _Thank you_ ,” almost painful in its intensity. “I am in your debt.”

Even as Sothis exclaimed in alarm, “No, don’t say that—“, Alva’s eyes went wide and she shook her head, fiercely. “You are _not._ I bound your father without warning, and in an equal bargain; there is no debt between us.” She took a deep breath, exhaling slowly. “You should be more careful with your words, Professor Eisner. Debts can be dangerous, and to say such a thing, especially to one such as me, could put you in my power.”

Jeralt’s voice was low and thoughtful, as he commented, “I told Lady Rhea that I owed her my life, once.”

“Did you, now? That explains a great deal. I think I’d be right in saying that, since then, you’ve felt compelled to do as she says?”

Jeralt nodded. “I have. It was worse, after I joined the Knights of Seiros; it eased, a little, after I married my wife.”

Alva groaned. “Your wife. Right. On that note, I really think it’s time you told us about her, and whatever the _hell_ is going on with Archbishop Rhea and your family.”

Jeralt grimaced. “Fair enough. I don’t know much, though.” Then, addressing his daughter, “I was planning to tell you tonight, anyway. You deserve to know.”

So Jeralt took a deep breath, rallied his remaining strength, and started at the beginning. He told them about being young, and unexpectedly gifted with immortality, or something like it, and a crest; about learning that Rhea was also ageless, and somehow no one ever noticed that the Archbishop never changed. He told them about meeting Sitri, who had been a nun, and also oddly connected to Rhea, and of falling in love and marrying her. Of Sitri becoming pregnant, and Rhea hovering constantly, and he had been reassured by it, thinking that she would ensure no harm came to mother or child; of being sent on a mission, and returning to find that Sitri had died in childbirth, and that she had chosen to sacrifice herself that the child might live. A child which did not cry, did not laugh, made no sound at all, and Rhea’s assurances that all was well, and her insistence on his leaving his child in her care. Of a doctor, called in secret, examining the child and declaring that the baby had a pulse but no heartbeat; of his mounting fear and desperation to get his child, his daughter, away from whatever horrible thing Rhea had planned, of taking advantage of a fire to fake his child’s death in a desperate bid for freedom, and how Rhea seemed to _lose her mind entirely_ when the news was brought her.

When he had finished, all three of them sat in silence. Finally, Alva stirred. “Thank you for telling me this—I understand, now, why you were so reluctant before.”

Jeralt groaned. “I only wish I knew what any of it _meant!_ ”

Alva grimaced. “Nothing good, I’m sure about that. But it will keep, at least for now. We can worry about Archbishop Rhea once we’ve slept.”

Once her father and her student had dropped off, Emrys made her way back to her room.

Sothis had been very quiet since Jeralt’s story. “Sothis?”

“Well, at least now I know why our fates are intertwined. ”

“You do?”

Sothis made a face. “I have an idea, anyway. It’s not complete—if only I could _remember!_ Let me think about this, see if I can’t piece it together. Something feels _wrong_ about this, like a perversion, and I don’t know _why…_ ”

“Sothis, should I tell them about you? If you think it’s relevant?”

“…not yet. I think…it could be very dangerous, if anyone knew. The little fae is clever, but weak; wherever she got the power to bind your father, she paid for it. First, let’s deal with those responsible for Remire and this attempt on your father’s life.”

“The little fae?”  
  


“Alva, of course. That was a fae binding she used. You might not have recognized it, but I did!”

“What, like—like the Wild Hunt? Like—“

“Yes! Yes, that exactly. I expect she’s a change-child, and didn’t know it, which would explain why what was done to her and Edelgard took her so oddly. She clearly knows _now,_ at any rate. I wonder who taught her?”

Emrys thought about that. Slowly, after a long moment, she spoke. “Edelgard said that when they tried to implant the crest of flames, Alva went mad, and only recently recovered. But—what if it wasn’t madness, or not conventional madness?”

Sothis looked thoughtful. “She came into her powers, d’you mean, and was found by one of the greater fae? That would fit, certainly.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jeralt Lives! And more people find out about Alva's fae-ness. (They draw some incorrect conclusions about it, but that's going to be a running theme for a while.) 
> 
> Honestly, I can't figure out how much canon!Sothis knows and doesn't know. After you read Jeralt's diary, she says she "knows why [their] fates are intertwined," but she doesn't tell you what she's figured out, and it's unclear just how much she remembers/understands? I'm trying my best to avoid a spectacular infodump that would kind of smack of deus ex machina (in the most literal possible sense), but it's tricky. (There's a reason Neith hasn't been showing up too much thus far.) 
> 
> I'm also trying to figure out what to do about Dimitri. Part of my problem is that I really, really hate him--even after he has his 'return to sanity' moment on the BL path, he continues to maintain that the only way forward is to protect the status quo at all costs, and spout this awful paternalistic _bullshit_ that just makes me want to spit. He _knows_ he would be a terrible ruler, and he doesn't _want_ to rule, but he _still refuses to give up the power of authority._
> 
> Honestly, I don't know why people like him so much.


	9. Interlude

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is a chapter I didn't actually intend to happen, but Claude just went bang up to me and said "I AM SO TIRED OF SERIOUSNESS. WE NEED TO DO SOMETHING RIDICULOUS, OR YOU WILL NOT LIKE WHAT WILL HAPPEN NEXT" and then...this. 
> 
> You might notice that I don't like Lorenz. I tried to be nicer to Dimitri, because I feel bad for him, for all I don't like him, but Lorenz isn't Tragic, just an elitist moron. (I stole the Father of Horses thing from his epilogue with Marianne, because it's wonderful.) 
> 
> But hey! Have some information about Alva's insanity, so it's not quite so much an Informed Characteristic. (That conversation with Dimitri was actually one of the first things I ever wrote for this fic, and I've been trying to figure out if it actually happens, and if so, when, since I started posting this.) 
> 
> Someday, I'll decide on a tense for this fic, and go back and edit it to be consistent. In the mean time, enjoy my constant switching back and forth between present and past tense. (Sorry about that.)

Alva is more or less confined to bed for a whole week for magical exhaustion. She has a constantly-changing stream of visitors, but she does not do well with confinement, and it shows. When she’s finally allowed out, she’s _twitchy,_ and it’s made worse by the fact that she’s more or less exhausted the available progress to be made on the mysteries she is trying to unravel. She starts having nightmares again, and one night, when she climbs onto the dorm roof to escape the monsters haunting her rest, she finds Dimitri already there. Normally, when he can’t sleep, he goes to the training yard and destroys things until dawn, but this time he’s just staring at the night sky, unseeing.

Alva thinks about leaving, but decides against it. Instead, she sits down next to him, and asks, “Insomnia, or bad dreams?”

Dimitri jumps, startled. “Oh—uh—how did you know?”

“That you were here? I didn’t. I have nightmares, myself, and need to come up on the roof sometimes and feel the wind on my face to remember what’s real.”

Dimitri blinked. “You have nightmares—? What about?”

“If El hasn’t told you what happened to us, I’m not about to. But...it was bad. I went completely mad, for a while, and it was only for El’s sake that I managed to drag myself back.”

Dimitri stared. “How can you just—say something like that?”

Alva’s smile was razor-sharp and crooked in the moonlight. “I just told you—I’m insane. I got better, but I still have to fight to remember what’s real. Lying about it helps no one.”

Dimitri hunched over. “So...do you hear the voices of dead people, too?”

Alva snorted. “Nothing so prosaic. No, what I saw and heard were things that never were and never will be—fantastic creatures out of myths and legends, talking animals and flowers, that kind of thing. Whole windows into other worlds, sometimes. I nearly killed myself trying to walk across a bridge that didn’t exist, once.”

Dimitri stared. “That—what? That’s insane!”

“No, really? I thought it was perfectly normal!”

Dimitri blushed. “Sorry.”

“Don’t apologize. I’m not sure if it’s better or worse than seeing and hearing my dead would be, anyway.”

“How could it possibly be worse? Constantly reliving my failures, hearing them die, hearing them beg me to avenge them...”

Alva shrugged. “Well, you loved them, right? Anything’s better than nothing, sometimes.”

Dimitri was quiet for a moment. “You say...you got better. That you dragged yourself back for Edelgard’s sake. How...?”

This time, Alva’s smile was wan. “I had help, for one—but I was pretty far gone. That said...the first step is to let go. The world I was living in—it was far nicer than reality, in many ways. On some level, I wanted to keep the flowers, the unicorns, the windows into other worlds. I had to let them go, to reject them in favor of reality. I had to stop running away. You have to really want to let your dead go—to live with the living, and leave the dead behind. If I lived in a fantasy, it sounds like you’re living in the past.”

Dimitri stared. “But—I can’t just ignore them! They deserve justice! They blame me—“

Sharp and hard, a knife in the dark: “No. _You_ blame you. They wanted you to live. You’re no medium, and the people you’re talking to aren’t real ghosts; always remember that. Reality is important.”

Dimitri’s face was ashen. “How do you know? How could you possibly know—“

“If you were really hearing the dead, I’d know. If you don’t trust anything else I say, you can trust that. I would not lie about that. It...has to do with the help I mentioned having.”

“...tell me about the help.”

Alva hugged her knees to her chest, looking contemplative. “I can’t really explain it. I was dying, I think. Anyway, that’s what I was told—I should have died. I was given a choice: to move on, to die, or to return for El. I chose El. The one who gave me the choice...made me a bargain. So.”

“You were dying?”

“Something like that.”

“But I don’t...”

“Look, the important part is that I made a choice—I decided that El was more important to me. Most important, worth everything. People always say they’re willing to die for something or other, but dying’s easy. The hard bit—the really hard bit—is living for them. My dying wouldn’t solve anything, my living would. So I fought. Are the dead more important to you than the living? Would you rather get revenge for the dead, or protect the ones still alive—Dedue, for instance? If you had to choose between saving his life and getting revenge for your dead, what would you choose?”

“I...”

“Because let me tell you, that boy loves you. He’s devoted to you. If you’d throw him away just for revenge, then you’re a fool. Punishing the wicked is all well and good, but remember that the innocent _are more important than the guilty._ If you have to harm more innocents than you save, you’re no better than the wicked people. Don’t let your friends have died for nothing. If a mother dies saving her child, then _honor her by loving the child._ Make sure the child lives, happy and healthy, and her death will not have been in vain.”

Alva looked at Dimitri, helpless and forlorn and lost. She sighed. “I told you earlier that I came up here because I never imagined a breeze—the feeling of the wind on my face was never in my dreams, waking or sleeping. I also sing, sometimes—it gives me a guaranteed real thing to focus on, to help block out the things that are only in my mind. Find something real.”

“...were you planning to sing tonight?”

“Oh, probably. I generally do. What, did you have a request?”

“Oh, uh, no? I mean, would you mind if I listened?”

“ I don’t if you don’t.”

So Alva sang. Softly, and sweetly, until she ran out of voice, Alva sang. She sang ballads, long and slow, about ladies trapped in towers, and a silly one about two lovers giving each other impossible tasks; she sang a mournful, sad ballad about a pair of lovers who were forced apart and died of heartbreak. She sang a ballad about a swan-woman who fell in love with a mortal and gave him her coat of feathers, and how their children longed for the sky; she sang a ballad about an elven man who fell in love with a mortal woman, and brought her to the faerie court to get permission to marry her, and how the faerie king heard her singing and decided he wanted to keep her for the court, as a minstrel, and how her lover used trickery to win her free, at the cost of his own immortality. When the last note of that one faded, Dimitri stirred. “I never heard that one, before. I’ve heard most of the others—my stepmother liked ballads. Where did you learn it?”

“My mother. It was a favorite of hers.”

“It’s lovely.”

“I always thought so.”

The next morning, Claude, fed up with both their lack of progress and the look of quiet misery peeking around the edges of Alva’s good humor, decides he has had enough of this. He collars Alva on her way out of sword practice with Felix. “How do you feel about Pegasi, Alva?”

Alva blinks at him. “They’re…nice?” (Felix, on the point of departure from the training hall himself, gives Claude an odd look, because _what?_ )

Claude’s smile is a little manic, and a lot evil. “Really? I always thought they were very boring—so monochrome. No variety at all! Just white, white, white…”

A wicked smile slowly blooms across Alva’s face. “You know, that’s true. It would be doing a public service if someone were to…fix that.” (At this stage, Felix’s eyes have gone wide in dawning horror, and he decides discretion is the better part of valor, and runs to hide in Sylvain’s room. _Plausible deniability.)_

“Right? I was thinking…purple. And orange.”

The next morning, the entire Monastery is roused by Ingrid’s scream when she discovers her beloved Pegasus has been died blue with bright orange stripes. All the other pegasi (and several of the lighter-colored horses) are also found to be suddenly far more colorful than they were the previous evening, all in strange and ridiculous patterns. The dye is found to be harmless, but stubborn, and no one can _prove_ Claude or Alva had anything to do with it. Lorenz wails _ceaselessly_ about the indignity done to his priceless warhorse. (Ferdinand sweet-talks Claude into giving him some of the leftover dye, after he promises not to tell where he got it, and spends _hours_ painting beautiful, ornate patterns onto his mare’s coat. Alva had covered her in blue spots, but Ferdinand painstakingly turned them into flowers, and the result was spectacular.) Claude, fed up with Lorenz’s…everything, tells Balthus he will pay off some of his (Bathus’s) debts if he does him a favor.

The next day, Lorenz is accosted at breakfast by a _terribly_ earnest Balthus, who takes a deep breath and declaims, in his loudest voice:

“OH! LORENZ VON GLOUCESTER,

FATHER OF HORSES,

MASTER OF STALLIONS,

LOVER OF MARES,

HOW WISELY YOU RIDE,

HOW GORIOUS YOUR SEAT,

THAT YOU CHARGE AT THE FOREFRONT!

ALL MEN OF STATURE

HAVE HEARD OF YOUR FAME

YOUR WISDOM,

YOUR NOBILITY,

YOUR HONORABLE LINE!

HEAR, THEN, THE STORY

OF THE GREAT HORSE-FATHER,

BREEDER OF THE BEST HORSEFLESH IN THE ALLIANCE!”

And he _just keeps going._ By the time he finishes the third line, all other conversation in the dining hall has ceased in favor of staring at the two of them, but Balthus shows no sign of embarrassment.

Alva just gapes at Balthus, listening in incredulous delight. “Claude, you _didn’t._ “

Claude looks unutterably smug. “Oh, but I did.”

“You _wrote_ this?”

“With the help of Hilda, Sylvain, and Annette.”

“Claude, this is _magnificent._ How much _is_ there?”

“Oh, _pages_. We really hit our stride around the seventeenth verse.”

By this time, Balthus had reached a verse talking about the shining coats of the foals begat by the horse-father, and Ferdinand had started chiming in with earnest little asides about how true it was that Gloucester horses were renowned for their fine coats, and how jealous he was that Lorenz had an admirer who saw fit to write laudatory verses in his honor.

“You even got _Ferdinand? How?_ ”

“Lorenz was very rude about his mare, yesterday. And I helped him repaint Eleanor. Plus, I told him how Lorenz treats women.”

“Ouch. That bad?”

“To disrespect a lady is downright _ignoble._ To do so publically, and without shame? Ferdinand was very willing to help.”

Dorothea has fallen over laughing, and is in helpless, breathless tears on the floor. Hubert looks morbidly fascinated. Lysithea and Marianne are both cherry red, while Hilda’s smile is wide with barely-suppressed glee.

By now, Sylvain has given up restraining his cackles of laughter, and Felix is staring, open-mouthed, at a smugly satisfied Annette. Mercy looks fascinated. “Annie, what did he _do?_ ”

Alva then sees fit to explain to Caspar that his favorite sweat rag, which he’s been using since the semester began, is actually intended to help a lady cope with _that particular time of month_. (To Dorothea’s eternal gratitude, she lies and claims it is _hers,_ rather than revealing that it was actually Dorothea’s.) The mortified shouting that particular explanation engenders can be heard from across the Monastery, and results in the revelation that most of the student body have _no idea_ how the human reproductive system works, so that Manuela insists on calling a mandatory and extremely explicit sex-ed seminar, which is amazingly awful. Even _Sylvain_ is mortified by the end of it.

Then Claude manages to perfect his stink bomb mixture, and by a very precisely choreographed bit of faux-accident, they arrange for a particularly unpleasant priest to come into possession of a vial which he manages to drop next to the main altar of the cathedral, which reeks of rotting skunk for _three days._ (Claude actually feels a little bad about that, since he’d not actually expected him to drop it _in the cathedral,_ he’d been expecting the priest to take it to Hanneman or Manuela to identify, but, well.)

This episode, however unfortunate, does lead to the discovery that Dimitri is apparently completely lacking any sense of either smell or taste. Which is fascinating. Alva recruits Mercy to help her steal Dimitri’s entire wardrobe overnight, and sew packets of catnip into the seams. (Mercy is dubious, but Alva points out that Dimitri is very gentle with animals, which normally avoid him, and encouraging the monastery cats to cuddle with him can only be good for his mental state. )

It works like a dream. Within two days, Dimitri is followed _everywhere_ by an enormous group of very attentive and cuddly felines, and his look of dazed delight at being absolutely covered in purring cats is a thing of beauty. Dedue actually hugs Mercy when she explains why the cats suddenly love Dimitri, though he apologizes profusely after. Sylvain starts calling Dimitri the “Tomcat” prince, and correcting Felix whenever he calls him the “boar”. Lorenz, still smarting from the “father of horses” episode, makes some very rude comments in exceedingly poor taste, which thoroughly upsets Ingrid. (Mercy, when she hears, just gives Annette an inquiring look—she never did get an answer about what Lorenz did that made her so mad she wrote poetry about Lorenz that implied he _slept with horses_ , and just gets a grimace in response.) So, when Claude makes a quiet suggestion to Hilda, she recruits _all three_ Blue Lion girls to help her spread the rumor that Lorenz is actually terrified of women, and only pretends to be a womanizer because he can’t disguise his crippling fear any other way. (Mercy even adds the helpful corroborative detail that when he helped her to the infirmary after she turned her ankle, once, he refused to look her in the eye _even once._ )

Suddenly, every woman Lorenz speaks to gives him commiserating looks and tells him he doesn’t need to pretend he isn’t afraid, really, and several of them offer to dress in men’s clothes when he’s around if it will make him more comfortable? Sylvain, when asked, wholeheartedly endorses the rumor, adding “You don’t think anyone is _that_ appallingly bad with women unless they’re trying, do you?” (When this comment gets back to Ingrid, she actually looks thoughtful for a while. She remembers what Sylvain was like before he hit puberty and every girl he met started chasing him, and the time he got drunk and told her that really, they wouldn’t take no for an answer, so he figured what was the point of trying? When she asks Mercy about it, Mercy just gives her an odd look and seems confused that Ingrid had to _ask,_ because surely it was obvious? Ingrid doesn’t know _what_ to think, but she doesn’t shout as much at Sylvain the next time she catches him flirting really appallingly badly with a woman, which is definitely an improvement.) 

Unfortunately, it is at that point that Thunder Catherine returns from her church-ordered murder-spree, and some _moron_ pairs her up with Ashe in the training halls, and no one is sure what she said to him, but Ashe is depressed for _days._ Yuri, who is _fond_ of Ashe, damnit, is not amused, and vanishes for a whole day, only to return with a beautiful illustrated edition of _Loog and the Maiden of the Wind,_ which he shoves in Ingrid’s hands with strict instructions to go show Ashe and talk about it over tea. Then he collars Alva and Claude and asks for ideas on how to get back at Catherine without actually breaking any laws. Alva, who remembers Claude’s complaints about Alois’s _terrible_ jokes back when he was trying to pump Alois for information about Jeralt, responds by informing Alois that Thunder Catherine secretly adores his jokes, but doesn’t want to admit it because someone told her that he’d think she was in love with him if she told him, and really, he shouldn’t take no for an answer. Alois rises to the challenge, and Catherine is subjected to a ceaseless flow of truly _appalling_ jokes, and Yuri even manages to sic Dimitri (the only one who legitimately seems to enjoy said jokes, leading to a few wry comments that he has no taste _in any sense of the word)_ on the pair, and Dimitri’s jokes are, if possible, _even worse than Alois’s._

Then Lorenz pisses off Hilda (which is impressive, because she’s normally excellent at manipulating him and approves of his entirely earnest regard for Marianne, but apparently he said something truly horrible to Raphael and Ignatz) and she pays Balthus to go about wearing a maid’s dress and sing odes to Lorenz’s hair. _Terrible_ odes. Balthus, eager for his best friend’s sister to approve of him, _even helps write them._ (Alva, who is _extremely_ fed up with Lorenz’s determined harassment, gets some of the orange dye they used on the Pegasi and puts it in Lorenz’s shampoo, which turns his hair a really horrible baby-poo green.)

Finally, after almost a full month has passed since the attempt to murder Jeralt, a happy, relaxed and laughing Alva turns to Claude and says, quite simply, “Thanks.”

Claude doesn’t need to ask what the thanks are for.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I should probably mention that one of the only things I honestly _enjoyed_ in my very resentful BL run was Dimitri's supports with Sylvain, which cast his behavior in a totally new light. The idea that he is constantly hitting on women very badly _on purpose_ as a way to _repel_ them is wonderful. I headcanon that he was pursued (and possibly sexually assaulted) by an older woman who was trying to trap him into marriage as a fairly young teen, and he reacted by trying to sleep with everyone as a coping mechanism, and then realized that actually, doing that worked pretty well to get most women to _leave him alone._ Without his father, who is also apparently well-known for womanizing, being awful at him about it.


	10. Interlude Part 2: Seteth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Was anyone else wondering what Seteth was up to for all this? No? Well, here, have his take on recent events, while I try to decide how exactly I want to handle the Actual Plot from here.

Seteth was…confused.

He’d expected the students to be tense, after the attack at the old chapel, where _students_ had been turned into demonic beasts, especially after whatever Alva had done to save Jeralt’s life (which had landed her in the infirmary for a solid week, and he still didn’t know what to make of the vague description he’d been given), and they had been, but…he’d expected them to be champing at the bit to be allowed to go after those responsible, and that hadn’t happened. He’d been bracing himself to deal with fights breaking out, because even he could feel the storm building, but when it broke, a couple of days after Alva was released from the infirmary, it took a shape he never would have predicted.

_Why paint the pegasi?_ For that matter, Seteth wondered, _How_ did they paint the pegasi? Where did they get dye that would stain their coats and feathers, and how did they apply it without anyone noticing? It seemed so _pointless._ Granted, it was mildly amusing, but...

Then there was the really horrendous poetry. Which was not, in fact, against school rules, no matter what the Gloucester lordling tried to claim—if they’d actually accused him straight-out of sleeping with horses, that would have been, but the poetry Balthus recited at the top of his lungs ( _repeatedly,_ since he gave an encore performance at lunch, and Seteth suspected he’d have done it again at dinner if Lorenz hadn’t locked himself in his room and refused to emerge) was just vague and euphemistic enough to pass (if one were very innocent indeed) as genuine praise of the heir of Gloucester’s skill with horses, and thus not punishable by school rules.

Then there was—whatever that extremely disruptive shouting episode had been, which had resulted in an irate Manuela dragging an extremely red-faced student into his office, whereupon he admitted that he had never even _heard_ of menstrual cycles, and related a theory of childbirth that included _a woman eating a magical flower when she wanted a baby,_ which the goddess then _magically placed in her belly,_ and before Seteth had managed to process the insanity of that, Manuela informed him with truly _dreadful_ irony that she had discovered, upon inquiry, that one of the _female_ students was under the impression that male erections were like female menses, and occurred _once a month for several days at a time,_ and this kind of ignorance was really _not acceptable!_ And so Seteth was forced to arrange an _absolutely mandatory_ sex-ed seminar, no, really, everyone had to go, _including all Monastery staff,_ so _Seteth himself_ had to sit through a _detailed explanation of reproductive systems_ (He had a daughter! He knew how this worked! …Not that he could tell anyone that) and the Facts Of Life And Gendered Genitalia, _with the students._

Seteth was just glad Flayn was not present, though when he recalled that this meant _he_ still had to explain to his daughter how exactly babies arrived in the world, he was less pleased. He decided, after some thought, that he would just have to hope that Indech handled that for him, if it came up. (Anyway, Flayn wasn’t allowed suitors, so it didn’t really matter.) (On the other hand…)

Seteth made a mental note to make sure Flayn knew about The Dangers Of Men before he next brought her into human society.

Then, of course, some _absolutely incompetent_ priest finds a tightly-stoppered bottle of some unknown liquid, and rather than bringing it to someone to identify, he puts it in his pocket, and forgets about it, only for it to fall out of his pocket and _break_ when he’s placing some offerings in front of the statue of the Goddess in the Cathedral, at which point it’s discovered that _no one_ knows what it was, or where it came from, but it smells _foul,_ and the smell refuses to fade for _days._ (Rhea is furious, and says whoever was responsible should be executed for desecrating a holy place, and Seteth has to point out that it was an _accident,_ and the poor priest in question had already been punished by getting some of the awful whatever-it-was on himself when the bottle broke. Rhea claimed that whoever was responsible for the bottle’s existence in the first place was guilty, then, and that the priest should have known better than to bring _unknown substances_ into the _Cathedral,_ but Seteth—who had his own suspicions about where the bottle came from, but was pointedly refraining from asking, thank you—managed to suggest that perhaps it had been left behind by Tomas, since the priest had said he thought he found it in the library, and managed to persuade her that really, they had all been fooled by Tomas, and it would be cruel to blame this poor man for a sin of which they were all guilty.) 

Somehow, however, this episode led to the young prince of Faerghus being trailed _everywhere_ by what appeared to be _every cat in the Monastery,_ smiling foolishly and hardly listening to anything anyone said to him _._ This was, admittedly, an improvement over his normal behavior, and didn’t seem to be harming anyone, so Seteth didn’t worry about it too much.

Then the Gloucester heir was back in his office once _again_ claiming defamation of character, something about women being afraid of him? Seteth wasn’t really paying that much attention, honestly, he’s _busy_ and very tired of this young man’s complaining, he’d already had to deal with his accusations that the Riegan boy (Claude, his name was Claude, and he’d been the one to tell Seteth what Professor Emrys had discovered when they were searching for Flayn; such a nice lad) was an impostor or some sort of heretic; he was a busy man and had better things to do than listen to puffed-up boys who thought they were the best thing since fish pie, so he just told him sharply that if the women were afraid of him, then he’d best stop doing whatever it was that was frightening them, because Seteth took reports of harassment seriously, and just because he was a noble that didn’t mean he was allowed to press his attentions when they weren’t wanted. That made the boy turn a very interesting color and start spluttering about misunderstandings, and so Seteth just sent him away with a warning that he’d better not get any reports about him forcing himself on anyone, and as an afterthought passed a message to the woman in charge of maintaining the dormitories that perhaps she’d best make sure that the sweeping and such in the student wing was done by male servants, not females, just in case he’d been harassing the maids.

(Unbeknownst to Seteth, the matron in question was rather more cognizant of the exact nature of the stories that were going around about Lorenz, and so she interpreted this as a request to tell the maids who were trying to reassure Lorenz that they didn’t hold his actions against him, that they understood he had been trying to conquer his fear and were really quite sorry that they’d slapped him, that this was only making the poor boy’s fear worse, and that they should probably just avoid him.)

There is a lull, then, and Seteth cherishes his peace, until he’s interrupted _again_ by an incoherently ranting Gloucester heir when he’s in the middle of going through the various proposals and requests submitted by various church officials (trying to puzzle out a particularly baffling one from _Thunder Catherine,_ of all people, who seems to want to forbid the telling of jokes on Monastery grounds? That can’t be right, but her handwriting is terrible.) Some student or other, Seteth gathers, is wearing indecent clothes for a religious institution—something about a maid costume? If this boy is trying to justify an assault on one of the maids—Seteth frowns. “I warned you that I would not tolerate any harassment, young man, if you’ve been upsetting the maids—"

But apparently the heart of his complaint is that the wearer of the maid costume is _male,_ which, okay, unexpected, but Seteth isn’t about to tell the staff which gendered clothing they are meant to wear, and anyway how, exactly, did he _discover_ that the wearer of this outfit was a male? Hm? Just because the person he’d assaulted had turned out not to be female after all—

_That_ brought on full-fledged hysterics, and sent the boy running from the room, screaming something incoherent, and Seteth decided that he’d probably realized that he wasn’t going to get away with any of that nonsense, no matter what he said, but he sent another message to the matron to make sure whoever the poor boy in the dress had been, he wasn’t too badly shaken up.

(The matron, receiving the message, proceeded to inform everyone that the Lorenz boy’s fear of women was _so_ crippling, he had been terrified by _Balthus in a maid’s costume,_ and everyone was suitably impressed. The next day, all the female servants who worked anywhere _near_ the student dormitories and classrooms were provided with masculine apparel, since apparently there was No Other Way.) 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Incidentally, while I freely admit that I can give no source for Caspar's reproductive confusion (I just made it up), the female student (who I imagined to be Bernadetta) believing that male erections are like female periods is inspired by the fact that I, personally, was under that impression until I was at least fourteen? Based on a misunderstanding that occurred when my parents explained the reproductive system to me when I was about 8. (I also thought that sex necessarily occurred in a head-to-feet alignment because the penis was pointing downward in every diagram I'd ever seen, so.)


	11. The Void of Zaharas

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I debated how I wanted to handle this for a while, but in the end, too much depended on Emrys gaining a visible sign of her bond with Sothis, so it had to be--at least in part. (You'll see what I mean.)

For the second time in her life, Alva woke up tied to a pillar, with no idea how she got there. This time, however, her mouth was horribly dry and she felt vaguely nauseated, neither of which were symptoms she’d had after the horseshoe episode, so…

She blinked. _Someone drugged me?_

_Alright,_ Alva thought, fighting down the reflexive terror that came with immobility, _let’s be reasonable, here. I was in the library, and Claude had just gone to fetch a notebook he’d left in his room._

Alva tried to concentrate, to remember what had happened next, but it was very difficult, especially when her head still felt rather fogged. She _thought_ she could remember the sound of glass breaking, and a funny smell, but that was all.

This was…not good. _El is going to have sixteen fits,_ Alva realized, _when she realizes someone kidnapped me from the middle of Garreg Mach._

* * *

In fact, Edelgard was not alone in having fits over Alva’s disappearance. Claude had returned to the library to find a persistent smell of Chloroform, a total lack of Alva, and a note saying _She should not have interfered._

Claude is not ashamed to admit he might have panicked a little. Just a little! But he felt a little bit of panic was warranted, under the circumstances. So if he burst into Seteth’s office and yelled “Flayn’s kidnappers took Alva!” and then ran off to find Edelgard and Captain Jeralt and the Professor before Seteth could react to that particular horrifying little announcement, he justified this as providing all the critical information and wasting no time.

(In the end, it only took about fifteen minutes to collect all the relevant people for a Council Of War. Edelgard, when Claude explained what had happened, went ice-cold and hard, like she’d been carved of frozen granite, except her eyes, which _burned._ The professor took one look at Edelgard and grabbed her by the arms, saying “We’ll get her back. She is too clever and too unpredictable for them to be able to keep her trapped for long.”

Edelgard’s face cracks for a moment, and she whispers, “The did it before—they broke her, and she—“

And suddenly several pieces fit together in Claude’s head, fragments he’d known but not connected—the people at Remire being the same ones who had experimented on Lysithea, thus the same ones who experimented on _Edelgard and Alva,_ of course Edelgard was freaking out, she knew firsthand what kind of monsters these people were and now they had her sister _again—_

Very slowly and carefully, Claude exhales. Now is not a good time to hyperventilate.)

Right on cue, Seteth returns with Lady Rhea, who demands to know what this newest outrage is all about. Once the situation is explained, Rhea says that she’s sure everything will be fine, if Alva turns out to have actually been kidnapped as opposed to having been an impostor like Monica the whole time, the knights will surely find her, they’ve already isolated the general area where they appear to be hiding, if Alva is there, then of course she will be rescued and returned to the academy once it is established that she was not complicit in her disappearance, if this was not merely an attempt to lure out Professor Emrys—

Pandemonium breaks out. Even _Seteth_ joins in the shouting, and it’s quite a while before everyone calms down enough that anyone can make out individual words in the shouting. Eventually it is established that _absolutely no one_ believes that Alva vanished voluntarily, and that the _entire student body_ (or, well, Edelgard and the Eisners, and honestly most of the student body would follow them, especially since Claude is 300% in agreement with them on this) is prepared to mutiny if they don’t get permission to launch a rescue mission. Lady Rhea gives in with…at least some semblance of grace, after it’s pointed out that the Monastery is still short-staffed after the Western Church fiasco, and sending the knights after Alva would leave them dangerously unguarded. (Also, Lysithea knows Warp, and does not feel remotely inclined to let this go.) (Edelgard has to fight down the lump in her throat at the sight of all her classmates, willing to follow her into hell to save her sister.)

It turns out that the enemy activity has been centered on an area called the Sealed Forest (and Claude has _questions_ about that, but they will have to wait), and within a few hours, all three house leaders are kitted out for war, because this is not happening, not on their watch. (Claude suppresses the guilty thought that it _had_ happened on his watch, he’d left Alva alone to go grab a notebook and--)

* * *

Meanwhile, back in the sealed forest, Alva is interrupted from her attempts to find a way out of her bonds (sadly, unlike the last time this had happened, she cannot simply cut herself free and be done with it) by the appearance of Monica.

Because this situation couldn’t get any worse.

“Hello, Miss Alva! We’ve been hoping to talk to you, you’re rather an interesting enigma. To start with, _how_ did you manage to save Jeralt? I even broke my cover, and you didn’t have the decency to let him die!”

Alva stares at Monica, incredulous. _That’s_ what this is about? Thoughts racing, Alva plays for time, drawling, “Yes, terribly rude of me to prevent you from _murdering my teacher’s father._ However could I forget that piece of etiquette: when a spy abandons their cover to commit a murder for no discernable reason, clearly it is only polite to let them succeed. I’ll have to remember that for next time I’m busy _frantically trying to prevent an ally from bleeding out._ ”

If Monica grasps the sarcasm, she gives no sign of it. “Yes! Exactly. _See that you do._ And in the meantime, you can make up for your oversight by _explaining how you did it!_ ”

Yeah, that’s…not happening. “Sorry, but I’m going to have to say ‘no’ to that. So, if that was all, if you’d untie me and return me to the Monastery before El has a full-on panic attack at my absence, that would be lovely, and we could both go about our business—I can return to trying to master _Rescue,_ which, I know, kind of ironic, and you can continue whatever creepy evil plots you were planning that involve hiding out in this forest, yes?”

“No! Besides, after you ruined our first plan, we had to come up with another way to lure your precious teacher here—we’d hoped that even after Jeralt survived, his devoted daughter would feel it necessary to come after us here, but then there was all that—that! You did! With the laughter! _AND THE PAINTED HORSES!_ And so we _had_ to kidnap you, because even if she wouldn’t come for revenge against a failed murder attempt, she’d _have_ to come if we kidnapped her precious father’s rescuer!”

But Alva was hardly listening, still stuck on the _painted horses_ line. “Wait, this is about the _pranks?_ You kidnapped me because we _painted the pegasi?_ ”

“Because of you, everyone was _happy_ and _laughing_ and _distracted!_ How could we expect them to come after us if they were busy _giggling over stupid people in maid’s dresses and purple ponies!”_

Alva stared. “You’re insane. You know that, right? I mean, I’m crazy, I admit it, but this is _ridiculous._ You thought, what, that because we found a way to let off steam without violence, the professor would magically stop caring about the fact you tried to murder her father? Are you _joking?_ No, wait, apparently joking is the bane of your existence—wait, does that mean you are _actually weakened and/or repelled by joy and laughter?_ Is that a real thing? Because if that’s a thing, then I take it all back, that’s amazing—“ and Alva couldn’t help it, she burst into helpless giggles at the idea that these horrible people, these creatures who were the stuff of nightmares, were literally _the monster under the bed, repelled by laughter,_ seriously, how was this her life?

Monica screamed in incoherent frustration. “ _No, we are not repelled by laughter!_ Stop laughing! _TAKE ME SERIOUSLY!”_

Alva finally managed to get herself under control long enough to gasp “That’s—not doing a great job convincing me, I can’t believe—the monster under the bed, _how poetic can you get_ —“

“ _STOP LAUGHING AND LOOK SUITABLY TERRIFIED! YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO BE THE BAIT!”_

_That_ cut through Alva’s mirth in a hurry. “ _Bait?_ What do you mean, bait—“ too late, Alva remembered what else Monica had said, when she’d been distracted by the idea that they’d kidnapped her because of the shenanigans she and Claude had gotten up to when they were burning off steam, and she suddenly felt very sober indeed. “—oh goddess, this is a trap, of course it’s a trap, and it’s not about the laughter, it’s because it was a _distraction,_ that makes _so much more sense—“_ only not entirely, because Monica _had_ seemed unreasonably upset when Alva had started laughing, and the way she’d phrased her original complaint, ‘with the laughter,’ seemed to indicate it was a problem, and she filed that thought away for future examination, “—how exactly did you plan to let them find you? You can’t have left an obvious path, because if you had been followed immediately, they’d be here by now—how long was I unconscious?”

“Ugh, ages! It was _hours,_ and I had to just wait and wait and WAIT—“

Alva cringed, because if it had been hours, then there was no way she was getting out of this before her sister realized she’d been kidnapped, and there was no way this was going to end well, even if no one got hurt, now, El wasn’t going to let her out of her sight for _weeks._ Lovely.

Just then, the asshole-who-was-no-longer-even- _pretending-_ to-be-Tomas appeared, and Alva had seen him in Remire, as well as when he’d grabbed Monica after she stabbed Jeralt, but she hadn’t gotten a good look at his face before this, what _was_ he? Alva wracked her memory for any tale she’d ever heard of a creature that could look human, could impersonate someone, and then turn into something like _that_ , but nothing came to mind. _Darkness, wickedness, repelled by joy and laughter—_ and Monica had been a real person, not just a disguise, there had been a real girl, a daughter of Baron von Ochs, and El’s uncle had changed, too, hadn’t he? So, some sort of—parasite? Something that could _take you over?_ That was a horrible thought, but it made too much sense to disregard, and Alva blessed the fact that her bargain with Neith precluded the possibility of anything else getting a hold on her that way. _And whatever they are, they don’t recognize an elf-daughter when they see one,_ she added mentally, _because otherwise they’d have recognized me, especially after what I did to Jeralt, and the tricks should have given them a clue, that’s classic, tricks to make a fae feel better—_

That brought Alva up short, as she paused, taking stock of herself. _Am I stronger, now? Did the jokes actually make me_ stronger? Somewhat astonished, Alva realized with a start that she _was_ stronger, she felt more powerful than she could remember having felt in her whole life, even tied to a pillar, and her fit of giggles seemed to have dispelled the worst of the drug aftereffects. _Huh. What do you know, maybe there’s a reason for faerie mischief._ That only lent strength to the idea that the—whatever-they-were, Alva decided to call them _nightwalkers,_ at least in the privacy of her own head, at least until she had a better name for them—might be weak to laughter, which, if that was true, that discovery would be _worth_ getting kidnapped. 

…Provided she could get out of here long enough to _tell someone._

And not-Tomas— _Solon, El said he called himself Solon—_ was saying that they had taken the bait, that her sister had rounded up both Eisners and most of the other students and they were making their way here, so it was time, and Monica knew her mission, and suddenly the forest, which had seemed so empty a moment ago, was full of the susurration of the robes of dark mages, and there was the sound of people turning into demonic beasts—that particular _whoosh_ as a human body was replaced with something much, much bigger, and the pained noises that accompanied it, Alva _hated_ that noise—and Solon vanished, leaving Alva and Monica the only two faces in a forest full of danger.

_Showtime,_ Alva thought, bitterly. She mentally reached out and shoved the slumbering consciousness of Neith, trying to get her attention, but apparently whatever they’d drugged her with, it was taking Neith longer to come out of it than it had taken Alva. _Joy._

_El, if you manage to get yourself killed, we are going to have Words,_ thought Alva.

And then, as if in answer, Emrys and Jeralt Eisner, leading what looked like her _entire class,_ not just the Black Eagle students, but _everyone,_ even _Dimitri—_ and was that _Lorenz?—_ crashed through the underbrush, arriving on the scene with all the subtlety of badly-thrown horseshoe. _Idiots,_ Alva thought, but fondly.

Monica showboated, of course, welcoming them to the _forest of death,_ and then she transformed, turning into something distinctly inhuman and holding a dagger to Alva’s throat, but Alva almost didn’t notice that, because—when she’d said _My name is Kronya,_ had that been—she could _not_ have been _that stupid,_ not if she was—but it had certainly sounded like—

It had sounded like a True Name. A True Name that had been kept secret, kept hidden, which made it all the more powerful, and she hadn’t even phrased it as _call me,_ she had said _my name is,_ for all the world like saying it hadn’t given anyone who heard her, anyone who _knew about names,_ the power to _bind her_.

_Well, then,_ thought Alva, viciously, _if that’s how you want to play it, let’s play._

And softly, so softly it went unheard by anyone present, so as to avoid giving away her newfound advantage, Alva whispered: “I bind thee, Kronya, by thy True Name, and I command thee to _lose._ ”

* * *

Emrys Eisner had known, walking into the Sealed Forest, that she was walking into a trap. It had to be; there was no other reason to try to kill Jeralt, not like that, as an obvious _betrayal._ Someone had wanted her to come here, and when she hadn’t come fast enough, they’d responded by kidnapping one of her students, the one who had saved her father’s life, to force her hand.

She was still waiting for the trap, though, because as challenging as this fight was, as well-hidden as some of the dangers of this forest were, there was nothing about this that was beyond her capabilities, not with her students behind her. Solon had seen her fight in Remire, had seen them fight _together,_ he should have had a pretty good idea of their capabilities, and so far? He’d stepped up his game, yes, but not enough to be _definitive,_ not enough to make a difference. Was the extra danger supposed to be Kronya herself? Was Solon himself, possibly accompanied by the Death Knight, waiting in the wings, to pounce on them once they had worn themselves out on these lesser foes?

And then Kronya spotted Edelgard making a break for where Alva was tied up, trying to free her so she could help them (and was no longer so vulnerable), and lunged for her, attacking her with the same knife that she had used on Jeralt, and Emrys saw red.

* * *

Edelgard kept one eye on the fight between her professor and Kronya as she hacked her sister free with her axe, but the professor in a righteous fury was a force of nature, and Edelgard wasn’t sure there was anything in Fódlan that could have stopped her now. Working steadily, Edelgard managed to cut through the last of the rope just in time for both of them to turn and watch the final confrontation, Emrys raising her sword to strike down the fallen Kronya where she lay in the center of the ruins.

But then, in a terrible repetition of the events of the previous month, Solon stopped her—but this time, he didn’t take Kronya and leave, he reached out and ripped something from her chest, and Alva started to swear, running towards them, and Edelgard followed her, because anything that could make Alva sound like _that_ was bad news, but they were too late, and darkness rises, consuming the entire area, and when it subsides Emrys is _gone,_ and so is Kronya, leaving only Solon.

Edelgard screams, and it is a desperate noise, horrible, asking Solon _what did you do, what happened to our professor,_ and at his reply, that he _banished_ her, condemned her to an eternity lost and alone in the dark, drifting and helpless and _alone,_ she hears herself let out a keening cry of denial, because that’s not possible, there’s no way, it can’t be true—

Distantly, Edelgard hears Alva tell Solon that he will pay for this, and he’s a fool if he thinks that a little thing like the darkness between worlds will stop her. Before he has a chance to reply, Alva takes a deep breath, and she starts to sing.

* * *

Claude knew that Solon showing up couldn’t mean anything good, but that was cold comfort when faced with the reality of the situation. Realistically, the knowledge that the professor was still alive was good news, because after all the other things he’d seen Professor Emrys achieve, he was pretty sure that she would find her way back eventually, but the key word in that sentence was _eventually._ Right here and now, Edelgard looked and sounded like she was having a minor breakdown, and Alva looked coldly furious, saying something about the darkness between worlds, and that rings a faint bell in the back of Claude’s mind.

And then, before Claude could remember why the phrase _the darkness between worlds_ sounds so familiar, Alva took a deep breath, and she started to sing.

It was unlike anything Claude had ever heard. The song Alva sang rose and fell, with odd harmonics and notes that trilled piercingly, notes he could feel in his _bones._ The sound of it, the reverberations, filled the clearing, seemed to fill the whole world, as Alva sang about finding your way beyond memory, beyond time, finding a door as close as your shadow, as close as your next breath, of a vision, of a dream, and a lighthouse, to guide lost sailors home.

Solon attacked, but Edelgard blocked him, and Alva just dodged, still singing, and Claude heard his own voice yell “don’t let anything interrupt her!”, and they were fighting, they were holding him off, because Alva had to keep singing—

\--And as she sang, her voice carried, across space and time, and on the other side of the void of Zaharas, where Sothis and Emrys were arguing about the necessity of Sothis sacrificing herself to give Emrys the power to escape, it rang out, making both of them pause.

Sothis recovered first. “Perhaps the little fae isn’t so little after all, if she’s enough power for _this._ And perhaps I needn’t give you _all_ of my power, after all, with her providing a beacon.”

Emrys hesitated. “So, you won’t disappear?”

Sothis looked torn. “Well, for a while I will. I will still have to become…part of you, my soul joined to yours, long enough for us to escape, and I will slumber, once more, as I did when you were a child, and I could not speak to you, or experience the world through you.”

“For how long?”

“…I can’t say. For months at least, perhaps for years—until I regain enough power to awaken, however long that takes.”

Emrys shut her eyes, dread and misery coiling in her stomach. “But there’s no other way?”

“No. And it must be soon, for I don’t know how long the little fae can keep this up, and to return without her showing us the way is more than even I can do safely.”

Emrys nodded. “Then we’ll do it.”

On the other side of the void, Alva felt it when the power she’d put behind her song caught on something, when someone grabbed hold of it, and she smiled, triumphant, pouring all her remaining strength into a final refrain, only letting her voice fall when she felt the world shiver in a way that meant the doorway was forming. Right on cue, as the last note faded away, a shining crack formed in the space over the ruined circle where Solon had crushed Kronya’s heart to banish the professor, the sword of the creator cutting through the fabric of space, and Emrys Eisner, glowing an odd blue-green, stepped through the opening.

Before the light faded, Jeralt Eisner, taking advantage of Solon’s distraction, cut off Solon’s head.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Honest to god, I was not planning for TWSITD to be some sort of supernatural thing, but then I was writing this chapter, and it happened. I hadn't actually planned for Alva's kidnapping, but I was trying to figure out how to get back on track (because I needed the Sealed Forest episode to occur, at least mostly), and trying to get back to that after we digressed into farce was tricky. No one was really worrying about TWSITD, so the drama had to play out differently--hence, kidnapping. (Also, Monica really did want to know how Alva saved Jeralt from what should have been a mortal wound.) 
> 
> And oh yes, the True Name thing is absolutely something I have plans for. Thales isn't going to know what hit him.
> 
> I'm trying really hard not to overpower Alva, because OP OCs are kind of boring? But, well. I wanted to save Sothis. So Alva got to sing, a voice in the dark, to guide Emrys home. 
> 
> (Also, lots of POV switching here, because everyone kept being too irrational/distracted/unable to narrate events for whatever reason, sorry about that.) 
> 
> Next time: Alva is not even _remotely_ okay with Emrys having some sort of weird bond with Sothis, she disapproves of people making deals with spirits without clearly defined boundaries, that's not how things work, and she summons Neith to have a look at Emrys and see what's up. So, everyone gets to actually _meet Neith._ Finally! Are people curious? (I hope people are curious). (Also, yes, Sothis is going to come back)
> 
> Because I'm curious, does anyone have any theories about what Neith is/what she looks like?


	12. Revelations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which everyone finally finds out about Sothis, both Edelgard and Alva freak out (though for different reasons), Neith is surprisingly helpful, Jeralt does not have a breakdown, and Emrys refuses to run and hide.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So...Neith! This is, I think, the longest chapter to date? Possibly the Abyss chapter beats it, but not sure. I didn't actually mean for this to be so long, but I originally structured it differently--originally, Alva took one look at Emrys after the whole Zaharas thing and went "WHAT DID YOU DO" and immediately summoned Neith to fix the binding, and the whole "Rhea is trying to sacrifice Emrys to bring back Sothis" revelation occurred later, but then I realized that honestly that was mostly kind of weird--however, the transition between the original Neith-summoning scene and the debate about what to do about the holy tomb situation is still awkward as all get out, sorry.

When Emrys returned from the void visibly altered, with pale green hair and eyes, Alva wasn’t particularly concerned, since temporary discoloration was not an unusual side effect of magical overexertion (one reason Hubert always wore gloves was to disguise the stains on his hands when he’d drained himself past the point of exhaustion casting dark magic). In fact, Alva had already observed that her teacher’s eyes sometimes went pale when she pulled a particularly uncanny save during a battle that was going poorly, so clearly using whatever it was that let the professor show up exactly at the right moment to save the day _did_ have that effect, and this was just a more obvious example.

To her later chagrin, she was even vaguely impressed by what she thought to be Emrys’s _quick thinking_ when she explained away both her return and the discoloration as being due to having spoken to the goddess while trapped in the void, and having received her blessing, which allowed her to use the sword of the creator to open a way back. To come up with such a plausible lie, while only moments from collapsing! Sure, it was unfortunate that it meant Rhea had clearly decided to try to set Emrys up as some kind of—prophet, or something, what with her whole ‘oh you must come sit vigil in the holy tomb, bring witnesses, I’m sure you’ll have some sort of revelation’ mission (accompanied by Rhea, who would doubtless be pulling the strings behind the curtain to ensure that the ‘revelation’ occurred on cue and consisted of whatever church propaganda she wanted to peddle), but they could deal with that. For that matter, if they played along enough to let Rhea make some big religious figure of the professor, when the moment came to publically decry the Church of Seiros as a lie, they would have the bonus of having Rhea’s fancy new prophet to back them up! She could even stand in for the archbishop for El’s coronation, allowing them to sidestep the potential problems inherent in El claiming the throne at short notice, without any religious figures involved. (Sadly, Alva herself could not go to witness her sister’s coronation, since someone had to remain and disarm any suspicions about the absence of El, Hubert, and the professor.) 

Around this point, it occurred to Alva that the professor’s discoloration was taking a surprisingly long time to wear off. Surely, now that she was recovered, it should be starting to fade? Was Rhea perhaps doing something to prevent their teacher from regaining her usual coloring? The obvious visual sign of the touch of the goddess was, after all, very good press for her. That could be bad, if Rhea was intentionally preventing Emrys from recovering from the strain…

Then, of course, El returned, and Hubert told them what he’d found out from the nightwalkers in Enbarr.

* * *

Alva stared at the pacing, frantic Edelgard. “El, we can’t just cut and run. We cannot. Firstly, there is no way that Emrys Eisner is going to agree to _abandon_ her students, even if we can convince her she’s in enough danger to warrant fleeing the monastery—and before you suggest kidnapping, let me take a moment to remind you that a) that would probably go very badly for us, and b) if you have any idea of her _remaining_ with us after we _abduct her by force,_ you’ll have to _imprison_ her, and that’s a terrible idea on _so many levels,_ starting with the one where that leaves her _extremely vulnerable to the people who imprisoned us—_ and who, in case you’ve forgotten, seem to have a vested interest in _killing her!_ We cannot!”

Edelgard whirled, her usually ordered hair in disarray, gesturing wildly as her voice became shrill and desperate. “So what are we supposed to do, take the entire student body with us? They’d never believe us! We have _no evidence,_ and if Rhea gets wind of it, she’ll have us executed, and then she’ll be free to do whatever she likes with our Professor, and we won’t be able to stop her!”

“ _Calm down,_ El. I swear, I will not allow your beloved Professor to be sacrificed on the altar of reincarnating the goddess.”

“You can’t promise that! You don’t—we can’t—“

“Can’t I? Here: I, Alva von Hresvelg, hereby give my sworn word and bond that I shall not permit _anyone_ to sacrifice Emrys Eisner in order to resurrect the goddess. _So mote it be._ ”

That, finally, seemed to get through to Edelgard, who finally stopped her frantic pacing to blink the spots from her eyes, after the flash that marked Alva’s sealing the oath faded. “But—Alva—Alva, what are we going to _do?_ ”

Alva sighed. “First, we’re going to talk to the Eisners, father and daughter both— _don’t_ interrupt me, Hubert, I haven’t ordered Jeralt to do anything since I bound him to my service, but that doesn’t mean I can’t, and I’ll ask the Professor to give me her sworn word not to betray us, first, and anyway she hasn’t betrayed any of our secrets so far, I hardly think she’s about to start _now._ And I need to talk to Neith. _Then,_ once everyone’s on the same page, we can decide how to handle this.”

Edelgard and Hubert both subsided, grumbling, but agreed.

Alva grabbed Jeralt first, on his way to the training yards. “Captain Jeralt! Have a moment? I need a word with you and your daughter.”

Jeralt looked worn, but he paused. He had about three dozen things he needed to do today, but… “Is this urgent?”

Alva’s gave him a look so flat that it could have been used to calibrate levels. “Yes.”

Jeralt took her word for it, and agreed to fetch his daughter and meet up with Alva in his quarters, which were reasonably private and large enough to comfortably fit all three of them. (He paused for a moment when Alva absently corrected him to four, but he supposed he should have expected that Edelgard would be involved.)

When opened the door to his quarters, Jeralt was greeted by a ferociously scowling Hubert von Vestra, who glared at him and ordered him curtly to come in and shut the door behind him.

Jeralt shut and locked the door behind him. This didn’t seem like something he wanted to risk someone walking in on.

Edelgard, who had jumped noticeably when they came in, looked unusually discomposed, and Jeralt was totally unsurprised when his daughter got one look at her face and immediately went to her, asking in a hushed voice what was wrong. Edelgard, looking increasingly distraught, hadn’t managed to say anything coherent before Alva cut in. “Before we go any further, I’m going to need you, Professor, to swear to me that you won’t repeat any of what we’re about to tell you without permission. It’s dangerous. And Jeralt, you needn’t swear, but as your liege, I forbid you to betray us in this. Just a precaution.”

Yeah, Jeralt _definitely_ didn’t like the way this was going. Emrys glanced at him, then nodded. “Alright? I promise I won’t tell anyone.”

Alva sighed. “Not like that. Say, ‘I, Emrys Eisner, hereby give my word I will not betray any secrets divulged to me between now and when I depart this room, unless given express permission.’”

Dutifully, Emrys repeated the oath. There was a dim flash of light, and Alva relaxed. “Okay, so the good news is, we finally found out why Rhea’s obsessed with you. The bad news is, apparently she’s trying to use you as a sacrifice to bring back Sothis.”

Jeralt blinked, and opened his mouth to ask Alva what exactly she meant by that, only to shut it again when Emrys, sounding baffled, responded, “Wait, so is that what Sothis meant when she said that Rhea had bound us together?”

Jeralt stared at his daughter, at a loss for words. Edelgard made a noise like a squirrel trapped in a teapot. Alva, speaking for everyone present, squawked, “Wait, you _knew_ about this? Why didn’t you say anything?!”

Emrys looked confused. “I mean, not exactly? Sothis said that Rhea had done something when I was a baby to connect us, but she didn’t really explain more than that. She did say she thought it had gone wrong, somewhere, but she hadn’t figured out how before the whole Zaharas thing happened and we merged.”

Jeralt wanted to throw up. Alva stared at Emrys incredulously and demanded, “Wait, that was _true?_ About you being given power by the goddess when you were banished to the void?”

Emrys’s expression became, if possible, even more baffled. “Well, yes. Of course it was. Why would I have lied about that? How did you think I got back? I thought you knew, since you obviously knew enough to help, what with the song and all.”

Alva made a noise like a constipated duck. “But all those times, in fights! Your eyes went pale and you suddenly showed up in the nick of time, before anyone could have warned you!”

Emrys suddenly looked a bit shamefaced. “Oh, you noticed that? I didn’t know my eyes changed color when I used Sothis’s power. But that was just rewinding time a little bit, I couldn’t use that to move between realms.”

Alva groaned, and covered her face with her hands. “I think you’re going to need to explain everything, from the beginning.”

Emrys gave in. “Well, the beginning, I guess, is Sothis. I mean, that’s what she said—that she was also called The Beginning.” Emrys turned to her father, adding, “You remember, dad, I kept having dreams about a young girl with green hair?”

Jeralt admitted that yes, he remembered.

“Well, that was Sothis. Apparently, Rhea did—something, when I was born, to allow Sothis to exist inside of me. But Sothis wasn’t—aware? She didn’t wake up until a bit before that fight outside Remire, where we fought the bandits. We didn’t really talk until the night before that fight, and she didn’t remember her name until—um.”

Emrys cut herself off, blushing, as she remembered the exact circumstances of that particular conversation.

Alva looked fascinated. “Um? Um what? What happened?”

“…Until she helped me save Edelgard from the bandits.”

Jeralt couldn’t remember ever having seen his daughter blush before. “Why is that embarrassing? You’ve saved plenty of people from bandits.”

Emrys colored further. “I, ah. Didn’t get it right the first time.”

Jeralt was fascinated by this new facet of his normally-aloof child. “Emrys? What did you do?”

Now bright red, Emrys fixed her gaze on the floor, and admitted, “…I might have just jumped between Edelgard and the axe, the first time. Rather than block it with my sword.”

Jeralt stared. “You, Emrys Eisner, saw someone being threatened, and rather than block the attack with your sword, you just _jumped in front of it?”_

Emrys nodded, miserable. “I was…not thinking. Sothis stopped time so she could yell at me, and at that point she remembered her name and the fact that she could control time, a little. So she rewound it just enough for me to block the axe properly.”

Jeralt looked from his daughter, red with embarrassment for the first time in his experience, to the young woman she had just admitted she had thrown herself in front of an axe to save on less than an hour’s acquaintance. Edelgard, he noticed, was also blushing, and staring at his daughter in horrified wonder. Idly, Jeralt wondered how he had managed to miss the fact that his daughter had apparently fallen in love at first sight with the _heir of the Adrestian Empire._

Alva refused to be distracted. “Then what?”

“Well, then we came here. And Sothis didn’t know who Rhea was, but she didn’t like her—she warned me to be careful, Dad, same as you. And then Rhea sent us to the Red Canyon, to fight bandits, and Sothis didn’t like it, so she said she’d let me use her ability to wind back time.”

Alva sounded faintly horrified. “She just—gave it to you? For free? She didn’t want anything in exchange? You didn’t promise anything?”

“Well, no. I mean, she wanted me to protect my students, in emergencies. Is that wrong?”

Alva hesitated. “It’s—open-ended. Unbalanced. That can be dangerous.”

“Well, it worked well enough, that’s all I know. Anyway, Sothis thought the Red Canyon felt familiar, but she wasn’t sure why. When we got back, after everyone calmed down about you,” this last directed at Alva specifically, “Rhea started to talk about how the red canyon was the home of the goddess, something about a temporary haven—sorry, I was distracted, and kind of creeped out? I don’t remember exactly what she said. At that point Sothis said that I definitely shouldn’t mention her to Rhea, and probably shouldn’t mention her at all, if I could help it. And, well, we just…went on that way? I’ve been using her ‘divine pulse’ ability whenever we got into a situation we couldn’t handle, and it worked up until Monica stabbed you, dad, but when I tried to rewind that Solon just—appeared! And stopped me! And there was nothing I could do, and—“

Jeralt pulled his daughter into his arms, and hushed her. After a moment to gather herself, Emrys continued, still talking mostly to her father.

“So, Sothis had been just kind of…hovering? Invisible to everyone but me? And talking to me, and it was nice. I almost told you about her, after you told me about my mother and the whole heartbeat thing, but Sothis was nervous, she said she had an idea about what was going on and didn’t like it, and thought it might be dangerous if people knew. So we were going to wait until after we’d dealt with the people who were trying to kill you.” Abruptly, she turned to Alva. “She recognized what you were doing with the bread, when you saved my dad. I didn’t, I had no idea what was going on, but she did, and she told me not to let anyone interrupt you. She called you ‘the little fae,’ after, she said she thought you might be a changeling? Was that true?”

For a moment, Alva looked like a startled deer, all wide eyes and astonishment, while Edelgard sputtered. Finally, Alva said, “I’m not going to ask. No, I’m not a changeling, I really _am_ El’s sister, I just—my mother had an elf ancestor, a long time ago, that’s all.”

Emrys looked dubious. “Really?”

Alva rolled her eyes. “Really. Subsequent events have, ah, encouraged the development of certain abilities and traits, but I promise, I’m not a changeling. More importantly,” she added pointedly, trying to get the conversation back on track, “you were about to tell us what happened, exactly, when Solon sacrificed Kronya.”

Emrys subsided. “Right. Well, he grabbed something out of Kronya’s chest, and he said something about getting rid of the ‘fell star’, and that he was releasing ‘the forbidden spell of Zaharas’, and then black flames were everywhere, and when they faded, Kronya’s body was gone, and there was just…endless darkness. Anyway, then Sothis appeared, on her throne—“

Alva cut her off. “Sorry, her _what?_ ”

Emrys paused. “Ah. Right. So, when I dreamed of Sothis, when we had that first conversation, we were in this big stone chamber, with a throne in the middle, and Sothis was kind of…sitting on it? Not, like—“ and here Emrys sat up straight and did her best to look regal and stern, like a ruler, trying to demonstrate the expected attitude of someone sitting on a throne, “—like that, but more like—“ And now Emrys tried to imitate Sothis’s lazy sprawl across the arm of the throne, feeling terribly self-conscious. This was very uncomfortable. How on earth did Linhardt manage—oh, hey, that was a much better idea! Emrys straightened up, and continued “--like Linhardt drapes himself across those big armchairs in the library, when he’s bored. You know.”

Based on the suddenly enlightened looks on everyone’s faces, that comparison had worked. Excellent! “Anyway. Yes. Throne. When I saw her when I was awake, here, she was just hovering—no throne—but when she brought me to her, in dreams or when she stopped time to yell at me, it was in that room with the throne. And when she showed up in the void, it was on the throne.” Emrys waited a beat, but when this just got grudging nods, she continued. “So, we’re in this endless void, and Sothis is really angry at me, because she says that we can’t rewind time to escape that place because it’s not—connected? And it would require a god to get back. And she says, she hasn’t got a body, not really, so she can’t use her power to take us back--" Emrys hesitated, not sure what about that statement caused the odd look to cross Alva’s expression, but Alva just gestured for her to continue, so she went on, “—but that she could give all her power to me, make me a goddess, sort of, and _I_ could use it, but that she would then—disappear?” Emrys stopped again, because this time the look on Alva’s face was really peculiar, a sort of complicated grimace of consternation and bafflement. Again, Alva just shook her head and gestured for Emrys to go on, saying “I’ll explain once you finish.”

Obediently, Emrys resumed. “I didn’t like the idea of Sothis disappearing, so we were arguing about it, and then—well, we heard your song. And Sothis said that maybe it wouldn’t take _all_ her power after all, not with you helping, but that she would still need to—merge with me? Like, we’d become one person, temporarily? And that we wouldn’t be able to talk anymore, at least not until she recovered enough to wake up again, which would take months, maybe years. So I gave in, and she kind of—well, she stood up, and she walked down the steps of the throne, until her head was on a level with mine, and we touched palms, and she kinda…Dissolved into me? It was very odd. And then I was running on instinct, and I turned to face the spot where it seemed like your voice was coming from, and I tried to cut the darkness with the sword of the creator, and it worked, and I came through. The rest you know. Now, _what_ is with that _face_ you keep making?”

Alva sighed. “Alright. So. I don’t know about a goddess, but from what you’ve said, your ‘Sothis’ is _definitely_ a greater spirit. And I know something about greater spirits, and how they function, and the space between worlds—which I think is where the spell of Zaharas sent you. Jeralt, you don’t know this, but the group Kronya and Solon belong to, the ones responsible for Remire, they managed to get their hands on El and I, and all our siblings, and tried to—forcibly implant the crest of flames, into us. We were the only survivors. It worked on El, but it didn’t work on me, because I’m part fae.” Alva paused for a moment, then addressed the whole group. “But even though it didn’t work, it did damage me. I…wandered. My spirit walked, and I wound up lost in the void between worlds, just…watching. And I met a greater spirit there, called Neith, and like Sothis, Neith was lacking a body. I made a deal with her, to get out—she helped me, and loaned me her powers, but _unlike this Sothis,_ she did so with a set bargain, which stabilized the transfer. I promised _her_ something in exchange—something important. And no, El, I’m still not telling you what, it’s entirely private and personal. Anyway, what Emrys said about a bodiless spirit being unable to use her powers to alter the material world, that’s true; without a body, she can't use her powers, much. But that’s all. What Sothis did, giving you her powers—it shouldn’t have even _worked._ Without a deal to seal the binding, she should not have been _able_ to give you her powers. What Neith did, what Sothis _should_ have done, was make you a deal such that you could use her powers to escape _in exchange for some service_ ; she might have been exhausted after—Neith didn’t wake up at all for months after she finished restoring me to my body, and she still sleeps most of the time, now--but she would not have _disappeared_. So you’ve got an unstable, undefined bargain, some sort of unknown binding holding you and Sothis together, and that’s _dangerous._ I’ve never even heard of anything like that. The only thing I can think of is that Rhea made a deal with someone to bind you together, and in that case, before we go any further, we _really_ need to know the terms of the binding, and how whatever Sothis did to ‘merge’ with you altered it, and for that, I’m going to need to summon Neith, since I can’t tell that by looking at you, but I think she probably can. Which means we need to talk to Claude.”

_That_ got a reaction. Suddenly, everyone wanted to know what Claude had to do with any of this, how did they know they could trust him, etc etc.

Alva raised her voice. “ _Yes,_ Claude, because I need space and privacy for this, and Claude’s abandoned stillroom cum poisons laboratory is the only place I can think of which is secure, private, and accessible. I can't risk being interrupted, and people _will_ come looking for Captain Jeralt, here. We could _maybe_ find space in the Abyss, but not easily, and I can’t afford to ask around! Claude knows about Neith—“ and Alva had to raise her voice again to speak over Edelgard’s horrified questions “— _and I have sworn him to secrecy about it,_ calm down, but he’d managed to draw some dangerous conclusions and at that point telling him was safer than him continuing to ask questions! We don’t have to tell him everything, but trust me, he’s our best option right now!”

Eventually, Alva managed to convince Hubert and Edelgard that yes, Claude was the best option here, and no, they really could not use his room without telling him, and no, they _definitely_ couldn’t use the secret underground room where they’d found Flayn, honestly, and yes, Alva would swear Claude to secrecy again, and they agreed to let Alva talk to him. (Hubert insisted on tagging along because he wanted to be sure that Alva did not reveal any sensitive information.)

* * *

When Claude found himself grabbed by a slightly manic-looking Alva, tailed by a very unhappy looking Hubert, he braced himself. “What’s up?”

“I need to borrow your secret stillroom.”

Claude raised an eyebrow. That…was unexpected. Previously, any collaboration between them had been tacitly kept secret, and now Alva was asking to borrow his stillroom, with no explanation, in front of _Hubert?_ Playing for time, Claude suppressed his first reaction, which was “Sure, but what for,” and instead asked, “What’s in it for me?”

Alva then proceeded to pull the rug out from under Claude’s feet by asking, amused, “How’d you like to meet Neith?”

Behind Alva, Hubert choked.

Less than an hour later, Claude was watching El hover over Alva, as she traced an enormous sigil in white chalk on the floor of his stillroom, out of which all his various chemical apparatus had been temporarily removed. There had been a certain amount of resistance to the idea of Claude’s presence for this, so he had retired to the back corner of the room, where he was hovering as unobtrusively as possible, hoping to avoid more arguments.

Edelgard looked unhappy. She still wasn’t pleased at the idea that Alva wanted to summon Neith for the express purpose of examining her teacher, Claude gathered. Fidgeting, she asked again, “Alva, are you sure...”, but Alva cut her off. “Hush, El. It’s time for you to meet my devil. You wanted to be introduced, didn’t you? It will be fine. Neith is bound by our bargain, and will not betray us.”

“You still won’t tell me what you promised, Alva! What are the terms of your bargain?”

And that, Claude reflected, was confirmation that he was the only one in this room, other than Alva herself, who knew what Alva had agreed to, in order to be able to help her sister. Which was interesting.

“My deal with Neith is my business, El. Unless you want to command me as my emperor, I am disinclined to share it.”

_As your emperor, huh?_ Claude filed away that comment for further scrutiny. _When did you get crowned, and why hasn’t anyone heard about it?_

Across the room from Claude, Hubert stirred in his corner. “Lady Edelgard, I think it would be best to let the matter rest for the moment. It is enough, for now, that Lady Alva is willing to permit her...patron...to meet you.”

“Well said, Hubert. Emrys, stand here, please, I want Neith to get a good look at you, since she’s the only one liable to be able to tell us what the terms of the binding are. Everyone else, please stand back.”

Obediently, Emrys stepped forward until she stood just outside the marked area of the floor, and everyone else backed away. Edelgard, who now stood with Hubert at the very edge of the room, looked nervous. “You’re sure this is safe?”

“Sure enough that I’m risking you by having you in the room with me, El.”

So saying, Alva pulled a small silvery blade out of her pocket, and moved to the center of the sigil. Kneeling, she quickly cut her left palm, and traced a complex pattern inside the small circle at the center of the larger sigil in her own blood. When she finished, she tucked the dagger away, bandaged her hand, and recited “By right of the covenant between us, Neith, I call to thee.”

For two heartbeats, nothing happened. Then, just as Edelgard opened her mouth to ask if something was wrong, Alva’s blood began to glow, and then the wider chalk marks. 

“ _There_ you are.” Alva murmured, getting to her feet and stepping back so that she was facing the center of the circle, smiling to herself. Slowly, the glow brightened, rising to form a sphere of light the size of a large melon, and then flashed, once, so bright as to momentarily blind everyone in the room. When the spots faded from their vision, they found themselves staring at the ghostly, slightly translucent figure of a tall woman, with long, flowing hair that was so dark it looked nearly black, but shone green where the light hit it, topped with a delicate circlet that appeared to be woven out of copper wire, set with carmines. Her eyes were a deep crimson and glowed faintly, and in the center of her forehead was a red marking that matched the symbol Alva had drawn in blood.

She wasn’t that much taller than Alva, or she wouldn’t have been, if she hadn’t been hovering a solid foot above the ritual circle. She wrinkled her nose, complaining, “Ugh, blood and formalities. Why do you never call me with song anymore? That was so much _nicer._ Also, I’ve told you that I don’t like being called your _devil.”_

Alva laughed, suddenly looking a great deal less tense. “Because you’re rather prone to ignoring my songs unless I pour a great deal of rather dramatic power into them, and anyway, this way I have more control over how you manifest. You’re the one who taught me this. Anyway, you’re certainly not my god, so you must be my devil.”

Neith—it must be Neith, Edelgard thought dizzily, staring at the elaborately dressed figure who was looking down at Alva in fond exasperation—lamented, rather over-dramatically, how much she regretted teaching her chosen to call her with blood and bindings, and how she didn’t know what the world was coming to that one she favored spoke of her with such disrespect. After letting her rant for a minute or so, Alva interrupted her calmly. “Neith. I need to know how a binding could be formed without a bargain, and what the terms were. Can you look at the professor, here, and tell me what was done to her?”

Neith looked contemplative. “You know, calling on my knowledge was not part of the original deal...”

Alva sighed. “I will sing you _many songs,_ Neith. I will _invent_ songs for you. Please?”

“...Very well. But you must sing for me at least ten hours, for this.”

Alva snorted. “Six, you ingrate, not ten. And not all at once, my voice won’t last that long.” Neith opened her mouth to object, paused, then hesitated, contemplating her summoner. Finally, she seemed to reach a conclusion, and nodded. “Deal.”

At that, the red marking on her forehead flashed, once, and for a split second Edelgard thought she could see a similar mark on her sister’s face. Before she could be certain, however, it was gone, and Neith was beckoning the professor over, saying, “Alright, little bafflement, let me look at you.”

Silently, totally bewildered by the interaction between the two women, Edelgard mouthed “ _songs?_ ” At an equally thrown Hubert. _This_ was Alva’s devil? She seemed hardly threatening at all. Of course, appearances could be deceiving...

Meanwhile, an increasingly appalled Neith was inspecting the absolute _mess_ someone had made of the child her chosen had called her to look at. “I apologize for my earlier lamentations, my chosen, this absolutely warranted calling me by blood and formalities. I’ve never _seen_ such a mess. Who did this? They clearly sacrificed someone to do it, or it never would have taken in the first place.”

Jeralt cleared his throat, awkwardly. “Rhea said…that her mother had given her life to save her. When she was born.”

“Well, she might have said it, but as far as I can tell, she gave her life so that this—Rhea, you called her?—could bind a piece of someone else’s soul and power to the infant’s body. Not even the whole of it, just a piece! It might have saved her life, I can’t say—it would depend on what was wrong with the infant, if anything was--but it wasn’t the way I’d have gone about it, and it’s a miracle it didn’t damage the child’s mind. Were there side-effects?”

Haltingly, Jeralt repeated his account of a baby that did not cry, or laugh, and had no heartbeat. Neith was appalled. “All that? Good heavens, the binding must have been positively parasitic.”

“It’s not parasitic now?” Asked Alva, curious.

“Now,” replied Neith, tartly, “It’s just a mess. Someone tried their best to invert it, or loop it back, I can’t actually tell which, and it’s so tangled that the parties involved are liable to lose their individual identities if it’s pushed any farther.” She frowned at Emrys. “Was that you? If so, what _were_ you trying to accomplish?”

So Emrys recounted the whole story of how she and Sothis had gotten trapped in the void, and Sothis’s explanation that they had to merge to get out, and what she’d done.

Neith was not impressed. “I suppose it’s _a_ solution, but really, she must have had very little training if she couldn’t do any better than _that._ And turning your hair green, really, no control at all. But then,” she added, thoughtfully, “if she hadn’t any memory, she mightn’t have known better.”

“Can you fix it?” asked Emrys, hopefully. “Sothis said she’d be gone for months or maybe even years, but—“

“’Can you fix it’, she asks!” Exclaimed Neith. “No, I can’t _fix it,_ not if you mean ‘can I wave my hands and instantly replace this mess with a healthy binding!’ What I _can_ do,” she added, taking pity on Emrys’s obvious disappointment, “Is undo the damage. I can stabilize and reweave the original binding matrix, so that you’re still connected, but that you remain distinct, with the power shared between you, at least for the moment. Something has got to overlap, and it’s safer to have it be the power than try to have it be your souls or minds, which is what it looks like it was originally. That will also help promote the energy rebound, so things will re-regulate rather more quickly than they would otherwise. If you don’t do anything too dramatic in the meantime, Sothis will wake up in a month or so, at least long enough to rework the bargain. At that point, you’ll be able to come to an agreement between yourselves that will let you coexist more reasonably, rather than trying to force the two of you to exist in the same space. Meanwhile, the more obvious signs of the binding’s deformation will fade, though any draw upon the bond will likely result in a brief relapse.” Neith paused, seeing the blank incomprehension on Emrys’s face, and sighed. Really, dealing with people who didn’t have any training was so tedious. Was it too much to ask that people be able to understand explanations? Patiently, she tried to put it more simply. “I can’t replace the binding with something more reasonable, because the binding has to be made between you and Sothis, and Sothis isn’t awake to make any bargains. I can, however, undo the damage, strip it back, and re-weave and stabilize the original binding, sort of like setting a broken bone in plaster, so that it can heal better and more quickly. That means that Sothis will recover faster, as long as you don’t use her powers too much. That way, once she’s awake enough to come to some sort of agreement, you can replace the original binding entirely with something that isn’t held in place by a blood sacrifice. Okay?”

This time, Emrys nodded, looking thankful. Neith smiled. “As the balance between you comes back to something more normal, your hair and eyes will return to their normal color, though it will probably take a few weeks, and they’ll go green again if you use Sothis’s powers. But!” and now Neith turned on Alva, who looked amused and expectant. “I know, I know. Six hours of singing was for your expert opinion. What do you want in exchange for the actual repairs?”

Neith quashed the urge to ruffle her chosen’s hair. Such a good little one! “I knew I liked you! You will write me two songs, all for me, and I want a word with this ‘Rhea’ about this abomination.”

Alva looked astonished. “That’s it?”

_Someday,_ Neith thought, with some amusement, _you’re going to figure out how attached to you I have become. But not today._ Rather than voice that thought, however, Neith said, “Darling, you do insist on underrating your own worth. Two songs, from one such as you, will be sung many times by many people; that will more than make up for the power expenditure. “

Alva looked slightly dubious. “Well, if you say so. And the word with Rhea?”

“ _That,”_ snapped Neith, in a dangerous tone of voice that abruptly reminded everyone present that this was a spirit of _power,_ for all her playful whimsies, “is for my own personal satisfaction.”

Alva was not intimidated. “It might take a while to arrange it, you know.”

“I,” snarled Neith, giving up entirely (for the moment) on suppressing her anger at what she’d seen in that poor child’s binding, feeling her eyes flash with power, “will _wait._ ”

As usual, her little chosen showed no fear in the face of her anger. Instead of flinching back, Alva just shrugged, totally unruffled, and answered, “Well, as long as you’re aware of that.”

And Neith felt the bargain settle, another thread connecting her to her little singer, her mark showing for a split second on her singer’s face. _Mine,_ she thought, satisfied. _You are a treasure worth the keeping, and I intend to keep you._ Bargain sealed, Neith turned back to the little avatar, and began the long and rather involved process of unravelling and re-weaving the bindings. It was careful, painstaking work, and by the time Neith had finished, it was past sunset. 

Finally, Neith fixed the last thread in place, and noticed with some surprise that Alva had not yet released the invocation. “You needed me for something else?” she asked, and Alva smiled at her apologetically, putting down the half-written song she had been working on. “Yes, actually. I found out about the complicated mess with Sothis and the Professor because we were trying to figure out what to do about some information we got hold of, and then we urgently needed to know what was going on with the professor and Sothis before we could continue. But we still need to resolve the original problem, you see.”

Alva turned to address Emrys, adding, “And, since I can’t leave this room without dispelling Neith’s invocation, I’m unfortunately going to have to ask you to go find the others, Professor. Sorry about that.”

A short time later, Jeralt, and Emrys were once more listening to Alva explain what Hubert had found out on the latest trip to Enbarr. Awkwardly. “So, we are informed, by a—source we would prefer not to explain, just now, that crest stones contain the power and soul of dead spirits. Ish. It’s a bit complicated. Apparently, Holy Relics work by allowing the wielder to channel some of the power from the crest stone, but there has to be some sort of pre-existing compatibility, which is why they can only be wielded by people with the correct crest. As long as you have the correct crest, you can channel the power contained within the crest stone…relatively safely. However, it is possible—we think, based on some admittedly sketchy information—to...overload that link, which would allow for the person in question to be…overwritten? By some sort of external entity. Given the fact that Lady Rhea has been rather fixated on getting you into the Holy Tomb ever since you ‘fused’”—and here Alva actually made air quotes around the word ‘fused’—“with Sothis, we think that _she_ thinks that you have achieved a strong enough link with her to permit her to do whatever it is she needs to do with the crest stones and use your body to resurrect Sothis.”

Jeralt had had a bad day. It had included several remarkably awful revelations, including the fact that his wife had been killed by Rhea _on purpose_ to try to use his daughter as some sort of goddess-container, and now he had to cope with the fact that she was, in fact, _still trying_ to essentially _murder_ his daughter so that the Goddess could take her place. His horror, which he had managed to squash while Neith was endeavoring to fix what had been done to his baby, if only so that he could fulfil at least a couple of his personal obligations, had returned in full measure. By now, Jeralt’s horror was so profound he could hardly think around it. His mind was filled with an endless loop of _My daughter—my wife—my daughter—_ spiraling back into infinity.

Emrys, far more practical, asked, “Would it work? Since you and Neith re-stabilized the binding?”

Alva paused. “That’s an interesting question. Hard to answer, since we don’t actually know the details how Lady Rhea is planning to--Neith, what do you think?”

Neith hummed thoughtfully. “Hard to say for sure. Could go either way, since I don’t think that the original quasi-parasitic binding could have held up to the strain of a spiritual overwrite, so it might be that the more robust binding would make it more likely to work—it’s certainly less likely to kill you outright.”

At that, Jeralt finally found his voice. “We’re leaving. I don’t care if I have to fake your death again, _we’re leaving._ She already sacrificed your mother, who was practically her _daughter,_ I’m not letting her sacrifice you!”

Emrys looked mulish. “I’m not abandoning my students! And where would we go? We’re recognizable, everyone _knows_ us, we can’t hide forever!”

Edelgard broke in, then. “It needn’t _be_ forever, my teacher. The church has been a force of oppression since it was founded, it has perpetuated the crest-focused society we live in, it is responsible for so much suffering—I, we, have been planning, once I graduate, to declare war on the church, to overthrow Lady Rhea, and change things, so it will just be until then, I promise—“

“In that case, it’s even more important that I not abandon you all! I won’t do it. I’m a mercenary, a fighter, I won’t be put away for safekeeping while you risk your lives! Besides,” she added, in a calmer tone, “You’ll have a hard time taking on the church without a causus belli, there will be a lot of resistance. If we have a lot of witnesses—your entire class, say—willing to testify that Lady Rhea attempted involuntary human sacrifice, that would make a lot of people think twice about supporting her.”

Jeralt stared at his daughter. He’d taught her tactics, but this—“She wants to use you as a human sacrifice, and you want to _let her try?_ What if it kills you? What if it _works?_ ”

Emrys looked exasperated. “Neith just said it wasn’t likely to kill me, not with the stable binding, and I can’t imagine Rhea successfully _forcing_ Sothis to do anything against her will—“

“ _Less_ likely! She said it was _less_ likely to kill you! Forgive me for not being comfortable with any plan involving my daughter in a role where the probability of my daughter’s death is an _unknown quantity!_ ”

At this point, just before the argument descended into outright shouting, Neith spoke up. “Actually, I think we’re neglecting a rather important factor, here: how sure are we that _Rhea_ knows what she’s doing? Because it’s one thing if we’re dealing with an enemy who knows exactly how to achieve her goal, but the evidence seems to go to show that she _doesn’t,_ that she’s just kind of…trying things at random to see what works.”

That made everyone pause. Jeralt, still extremely unhappy at his daughter’s proposed faux-martyrdom, broke the silence first. “Is that supposed to make it _better?_ That she doesn’t know what she’s doing?”

Alva looked thoughtful. “Yes, actually. First of all, there’s a perfectly good chance that whatever she’s trying will just—do nothing, that she’ll just go “here, hold this” and expect Sothis to magically take over. Secondly, whatever happens, it’s unlikely to happen _quickly,_ so the odds are that if she decides to do something more dangerous or invasive, we will be able to react in time to stop her. And we can grab whatever apparatus she has down there—the crest stones at the very least—which will prevent her trying this on anyone _else._ For all we know, when we declare war on the church, even if she can’t get her hands on the Professor, she might set her sights on trying to bring back Indech, or Cichol—and I _like_ Seteth and Hanneman, so even if it doesn’t work, I’d rather not give her a chance to experiment with anyone else.”

Edelgard made one last, desperate bid for sanity. “But Alva, you promised! You _swore_ you would not let Rhea sacrifice Professor Emrys!”

“Yes, and I’ll keep that promise, but that doesn’t mean I can’t let Lady Rhea escort us down to the Holy Tomb and incriminate herself—and if we grab the crest stones, which from all the information we’ve got are _critical_ to anything Rhea might attempt, as soon as we get down there, she won’t get the chance to try.”

Edelgard and Jeralt still looked deeply unhappy about letting Emrys play bait, but even they had to admit the force of this argument. They gave in, however, since it was clear that Emrys was not going to cooperate with any plan involving her immediate departure, and (as Alva had pointed out to Edelgard) any plan involving kidnapping her and holding her prisoner for her own safety was liable to end badly. 

Finally. Alva groaned at the rush of exhaustion that hit her as Neith vanished, mercifully taking the summoning circle with her. “I really hope,” she told Edelgard, who caught her as she swayed on her feet, “that I never have to maintain an invocation that long, ever again. That is _far_ more draining that I had expected.”

Edelgard looked worried. “You’ll be okay? I didn’t realize it was so hard on you, you were fine until she left!”

Alva snorted. “Reaction. As long as Neith was here, she bolstered my reserves—I don’t actually feel the strain until she’s gone. I’ll be fine, I just need to sleep for about 16 hours—ugh, and I still owe Neith _six hours_ of singing, that’s just wonderful, even split that’s going to be exhausting. Thank the goddess the whole Holy Tomb fiasco isn’t until the end of next week, I can split the singing across this week and I’ll still have next week to recover.”

Edelgard blinked. “Wait, but—you sing all the time, why is that so tiring?”

Alva gave her a flatly amused look. “Oh, you little innocent. Singing for Neith isn’t the same as just absently singing, I need to put some intent behind it, that’s what makes it worth the barter. It’s the difference between Dorothea singing quietly to herself and Dorothea singing opera on a stage—that kind of singing is exhausting.”

True to her word, Alva slept straight through both breakfast and lunch the next day, waking to find a basket of pastries sitting outside her bedroom door, with a note saying _to help you recharge!_

El, Alva reflected, as she devoured a cinnamon roll the size of her head, was the _best_ sister.

She grabbed Dorothea on her way to the Cathedral. “So, I might have bartered six hours of performative singing to my devil in exchange for help with a problem I had. Thus, I’m going to be singing really dramatically in the cathedral for a couple of hours a day for the next few days. Care to join me? I was thinking we could have some fun with it, maybe even rope in Manuela. You interested?”

Dorothea laughed. “You really do say the oddest things, don’t you? Sure, why not. It’ll be fun. Maybe come up with a more plausible cover story than making a deal with a devil involving singing, though.”

“But Dorotheaaaaaa, why would I ever want to do something so boring as give a _reasonable explanation?_ Half the fun is watching everyone try to figure out how to react to my madness.”

Dorothea pretended to think about it. “In that case, let’s have Dimitri come listen and tell everyone we’re trying to teach the cats how to sing opera.”

“This,” Alva told her very seriously, “is why I like you. Well, that and the spectacular opera singing. Let us sally forth and recruit Manuela to teach cats to sing opera. Onward, fair maiden!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, Neith. Neith is really interesting, to me. (If anyone wants a better idea of what she looks like, I sort of based her on Soren, from PoR/RD. I considered a few other appearances--I toyed heavily with giving her starry-sky hair, or eyes that were just windows into the night sky, that sort of thing, or going the other way entirely and making her look more like the Nabateans--but in the end, I didn't want her to be Nabatean, and I didn't want her to be grander than Sothis, so.) 
> 
> When I first wanted to pick a name for Alva's devil, I wanted to stick with the naming theme established in the game, and Sothis is a reference to Sopdet, the ancient egyptian goddess that was the personification of the dog star, Sirius. (Hence the 'fell star' bit.) So I started looking at various other relatively obscure egyptian deities, and I came across Neith. Neith is an ancient creator goddess, a goddess of weaving and wisdom (among much, much else), and basically a great deal of what the game attributes to Sothis would be more accurately applied to Neith. She is usually depicted wearing a red crown. One of her titles, and probably my favorite, is "Opener of the Ways" or "Opener of the Paths", because this was a goddess who walked the paths between worlds. 
> 
> Neith was perfect. Actually, she was too perfect--Neith, the mythological Neith, was massive overkill, and way too much, but a toned-down Neith? Ideal. And thus my Neith, a weaver who wanders the space between worlds, was born. (And no, I'm still not saying what she is, exactly, beyond 'a greater spirit'). 
> 
> I really did struggle with this chapter. That surprised me, because it's made of pieces that I had written for ages, and the individual bits flowed really easily, but I had a lot of trouble _stitching them together._ For complicated reasons, I needed Claude to be present for the first summoning of Neith (foreshadowing!), but he really couldn't be present for the subsequent discussion of the holy tomb situation, both because there is no way Edelgard and Hubert trust him enough, and also because I have plans for what is going to happen. 
> 
> Anyway, I hope everyone enjoyed meeting Neith. Next time, I think we maybe get an update on what Seteth thinks is going on (spoiler: he's still very confused), and maybe even the conflict in the holy tomb! 
> 
> (Oh, and if anyone was wondering, Alva admitted to Edelgard that she was part-fae after the whole fiasco with Jeralt. She also told Hubert, who found the idea of being able to force compliance to oaths fascinating.)
> 
> Also, incidentally: I went back and re-watched the movies where we see Sothis on her throne, the initial dream sequence and the one where she stops time, and as far as I can tell, all of those are in the same dark void as the void of Zaharas. That makes no sense to me, because Sothis's dialogue is clearly freaked out about the darkness during the Zarahas episode, so I decided to pretend that the previous throne scenes were actually set in the holy tomb.


	13. Interlude: Edelgard.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which there is hair dye.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, did I say that this chapter would include what Seteth thinks about the whole green hair+Rhea's newest sketchiness situation? Or the Holy Tomb? Because, uh. That didn't happen. Someone pointed out in the comments (ZackdasBohne) that actually I haven't had much Edelgard-Alva bonding, and I realized that was true, so I poked Edelgard and said _tell me about your memories of Alva,_ and...this happened. 3k words of cracky fluff, basically.

Edelgard remembered what Alva had been like, before. She had memories of her big sister, warm and laughing and dancing, always moving, always graceful, where Edelgard had been clumsy. Alva was always full of songs and stories, and wove flowers and feathers into her hair, instead of jewelry. When her other siblings ran off and left Edelgard alone with Hubert, Alva had been the one to stay and play with her. She’d taught Edelgard her lessons by singing them, put all the different noble houses of Adrestia to music, and laughed and said it was because she couldn’t remember anything without a tune.

Edelgard, small and awkward, had adored her. She’d taken to following her around like a duckling, though Alva had called her “my little sparrow” for her brown hair. (Edelgard had been frightfully upset about that, since sparrows were such plain little birds, but Alva had said that she thought they were gorgeous, so dainty and fine. She’d meant it, too: it was always the soft brown feathers, so lovely and sleek, that Alva had braided into her hair, not the white swans-feathers or the brilliantly colored exotic ones that came all the way from Brigid.)

Alva didn’t call Edelgard her little sparrow, anymore. Edelgard hadn’t had to ask her why. Sparrows were sweet and cute and brown, harmless little things—she had become an Eagle, been forced to become one. (She still missed the sparrow.)

Alva still sang, but now, rather than full songs, start to finish, she sang in odd bits and snatches—fragments, never the whole story.

And she never relaxed indoors.

For as long as Edelgard could remember, Alva had been afraid of small, enclosed spaces. She’d asked her about it, once, when she was five years old and fearless, because she couldn’t imagine why someone so brave and clever would be afraid of the closet, and Alva had said that she’d been trapped in a trunk, once, by mistake. That she’d wanted to stay up to see the opera, so she’d hidden herself in a crate of wine bottles intended for a party, but then she’d not been able to get out, and she’d been stuck, unable to move, trapped in a crate in the cellar for hours, until someone heard her and came and let her out. Ever since then, she’d hated being restrained, immobile, trapped.

_And then they chained you up, in the dark under the Palace,_ Edelgard thought, forcing down the old horror.

She hid it well, Edelgard reflected, watching the nearly-imperceptible tension enter her sister’s frame as she stepped into the entry hall of the cathedral. When they’d been children, it had only really been _small_ spaces that bothered Alva, like closed carriages, but it was worse, now. She didn’t let it show, never let it stop her, but she tensed up any time she was indoors, with a tension that only really eased when she stepped out again. And she never wore heavy armor—even her boots were soft, made of leather, a dancer’s shoes.

Edelgard missed her sister, even with her sister standing beside her. _I will find a way,_ Edelgard swore to herself, as she watched her sister and Dorothea and Manuela fill the whole cathedral with song, paying off her debt to Neith in style, _to undo what has been done to us. I will be again a little brown sparrow, and give you back your flames._

Out of the corner of her eye, Edelgard spotted Lorenz, whose hair was still oddly greenish. Suddenly, Edelgard had an idea. A trifle absurd, maybe, but Alva liked absurdity, didn't she? _Oh, who cares,_ she thought, _I’ll do it anyway._

She’d just have to ask around to find supplies. (…once Alva finished singing.)

* * *

Emrys looked at Edelgard, baffled. “You want me to help you buy hair dye?”

“Yes. I just…” Edelgard hesitated, trying to find a way to put this into words without sounding pathetic. “Thought it would be nice,” she finished, lamely. “Alva’s been so tense.”

Emrys cocked her head to one side. “She did seem in much better spirits after all the ridiculousness started last month,” she acknowledged. “And as long as it’s non-toxic, I don’t see any harm in putting dye in everyone’s shampoo, though I suppose as your teacher I shouldn’t encourage this kind of behavior.”

Edelgard’s eyes went wide. She squeaked. _Oh no,_ she thought, _that’s not—_

But before she managed to untie her tongue and explain that she really hadn’t meant to suggest playing a trick like that on the entire student body, she’d just wanted to restore her own and Alva’s hair colors temporarily, Emrys was nodding, once, sharply. “I’ll do it.” And then she was getting up, turning to leave, oh, goddess, what had Edelgard done?

On her point of departure, Emrys paused, glancing back over her shoulder. “Any particular color requests?”

Without thinking, Edelgard responded, “I was thinking—red for Alva, and brown for me? That is—”

But Emrys was gone.

Five minutes later, Manuela was staring at her young coworker. “You want to…color your hair?”

Emrys hesitated, then nodded, solemnly. “You used to be an opera singer, yes? On the stage? I thought you might know where I could get stage makeup and hair coloring.”

Manuela did, of course, but—“I think the green is rather fetching, myself. You don’t like it?”

Emrys paused. Considered. _That’s as good an explanation as any, I suppose,_ she thought, and said, “It’s not bad, but it feels wrong. Not like me.”

Slowly, Manuela nodded. “Well, of course, if you feel like that, I think I still have a book on hair treatments,” she acquiesced. “I’ll see if I can’t find it and lend it to you tomorrow, shall I?”

The next day, Manuela handed Emrys a hefty manual of how to compound various hair treatments and pigmentations. “In Enbarr, you’d just be able to go to a shop and buy the dyes, ready-made, but around here there’s not much demand; you’ll have to concoct your own. The pigments, anyway, are generally available—they’re the same ones the artists use, for the most part, and there’s always a demand for paint in a monastery. The fixatives might be a little tricky, but I expect you’ll be able to make it work.”

Emrys thanked Manuela, accepted the book, and proceeded to completely ignore the pile of carefully written-up strategies her students had handed in today in response to the latest tactical puzzle she’d assigned in favor of reading it. By the end of the day, she’d written up a shopping list of pigments that were both affordable and suitably varied to please Edelgard, plus some compounds that were supposed to lighten dark hair, because fair was fair. (If she then made a point of leaving the book out on a table in her classroom, in full view, for most of the following day, well. That way, she’d be able to say perfectly honestly that any one of her students could have taken advantage of it, how should she know who had been responsible for the sudden outbreak of strange hair colors?)

(Emrys was, after all, a good tactician.)

A few days later, returning from town with a large bundle under her arm, Emrys found Edelgard and informed her, very seriously, that she had successfully acquired an array of pigments suitable for coloring hair, and would she like to help her create the dyes?

Edelgard stuttered for a few minutes, then gave up and said that yes, she’d like that.

* * *

And so it was that Claude found a rather colorful Emrys and Edelgard in an abandoned shed, just outside Garreg Mach.

Edelgard looked mortified.

“Okay,” Claude said, trying to make sense of the scene he’d interrupted, “…I give up. _What_ are you two doing?”

Edelgard made a faint noise like a mouse at the bottom of a well. Emrys, unperturbed, responded, “concocting hair dye.”

Slowly, a wicked grin spread across Claude’s face. “Hair dye. Dare I ask why?”

“I find I wish to return to my natural hair color,” answered Emrys, bold-faced, ignoring the red smear across her face and the fact that the contents of the pot she was holding were a particularly vivid shade of burnt orange.

Edelgard whimpered.

Claude looked at them. He decided to play along, for the moment. “Well then, I can tell you already that you’re barking up the wrong tree; Turmeric might turn blue hair green, but it won’t turn green hair blue.”

Emrys looked down at the pot in her hands. “Ah. Thank you. I was…not aware.”

Claude raised an eyebrow. “In that case, Teach, I think you need some help. C’mon, you know me, I’m way better at chemistry than the Lady Edelgard over there. I’m hurt.”

Edelgard made a noise like a dying duck. Claude continued, “…unless, of course, you were actually creating dyes for some nefarious purpose, and did not want anyone else to know?”

Edelgard and Emrys were both silent. Claude waited, expectantly.

Emrys gave in. “Having noticed the marked improvement in Alva’s spirits following the series of events pursuant on the painting of the Pegasi, and noting her current elevated level of tension and exhaustion, we hoped to create some harmless merriment in the form of unexpected hair color.”

Claude managed to avoid bursting into laughter by sheer force of will. “Brilliant. I love it. What color were you planning to dye her hair?”

“Red,” Edelgard muttered, eyes averted.

Claude felt his face freeze. _Oh,_ he thought. _I see._ To cover his momentary confusion, he commented, “How patriotic! Were you planning to turn Dimitri’s hair blue, then?”

Emrys looked thoughtful. “We hadn’t gotten as far as selecting what color he would get, but that seems reasonable.”

Claude gave up. “Well then, show me what you’ve got. After the pegasi, I’m sure a bit of hair dye will be easy.”

Edelgard’s head snapped up, and she hissed “I _knew_ it! I _knew_ that was you!”

Claude gave her a wide, easy smile. “Of course you did. But you couldn’t prove it, could you?”

Emrys shoved the open book under Claude’s nose. “Here, help us figure out this bit. We can’t either of us figure out what the third step is supposed to mean.”

Claude settled in to look.

* * *

Alva stared at her suddenly-red-again hair in the mirror, and went to find Claude. On her way, she noted idly that she wasn’t the only one whose hair had unexpectedly changed color overnight, and she had to stop and appreciate the glory that was a blond Hubert for a few minutes, because it was amazing. (Also, Ferdinand’s hair was now black, and apparently he was embracing the aesthetic, because he looked like a tragic poet.) 

Claude’s hair, when she found him, was about four shades lighter than usual. He was also giggling madly.

“So,” said Alva, leaning forward, “I don’t suppose you’d care to explain why my hair is red again? With no warning?”

Claude looked up at her, and his eyes went wide. “That’s…huh. That’s a very attractive look on you. But, uh, actually, while I might have helped, I have to admit, this was not actually my idea.”

Alva blinked. “But the only other person who knows what color my hair used to be is…”

“…Edelgard.” Claude finished for her, softly. “Yeah. Her hair’s brown, today, though I didn’t dare ask about, y’know, why.”

“Oh,” said Alva, in a small voice.

“I found her and Professor Emrys ,” said Claude, carefully, “concocting hair dyes in a shed, secretly. I suspect that your sister asked Teach for help, and Teach misunderstood.”

Alva choked. “And then she…”

Claude suppressed a snicker himself. “Yes. And then she went along with it.”

Alva giggled helplessly for a minute. “Thank you, Claude. And thanks for helping keep my sister out of trouble, I’m sure she wouldn’t have been able to pull this off successfully without help.”

Then she went to find her sister.

Alva found Edelgard sitting in the Black Eagle classroom, scribbling industriously. 

“Well, hello there, my little sparrow.”

Edelgard jumped, and her head snapped up. “Alva! You—”

Alva pulled the chair out from the desk in front of Edelgard’s and sat on it, not bothering to turn it around, arms braced against the back. “So, I hear you’ve been busy. Having fun with our professor?”

Edelgard blushed bright red. “I didn’t—I just thought—”

Alva’s faux-serious face broke. She started laughing. “El, my own little sparrow, what were you thinking?”

Edelgard looked embarrassed. “I just...” she gave up, and gestured at her hair. “You never called me that anymore, your sparrow, and I missed it. I was watching you sing, in the Cathedral, and thinking how much we’d lost, and promising myself I’d find a way to undo what they did to us, someday, and…just then, I saw Lorenz, and I thought, well, maybe just for a day or two. I can’t undo the damage, yet, but I thought we could pretend? That I could give you the illusion, as a promise.”

“Oh, El…” All the laughter left Alva’s face, and she just looked sad, and terribly, terribly fond. She got off the chair, and moved around the desk to pull her sister into a tight hug. “I’m sorry. I stopped calling you sparrow because you’re so much bigger, now, I thought you’d outgrown it—and I figured it might raise some awkward questions if someone heard. I thought you’d be embarrassed, that’s all. I didn’t know you took it as some sort of judgement, you ridiculous creature. It was a lovely thought. Just give me a little warning, next time, okay? It was a bit jarring, seeing my hair red again.”

She felt Edelgard nod against her shoulder blade.

“Now. Tell me how your sweet impulse resulted into the entire monastery having odd-colored hair, because that has got to be a story worth hearing.”

“Oh, goddess,” Edelgard muttered. “I really _didn’t_ mean for any of this to happen, I just—asked for help buying hair dye, because I wanted it to be a surprise for you, and Professor Emrys asked why, and I said it was to cheer you up, and then she went ‘oh, I see, yes, Alva was definitely in better spirits after all the shenanigans last month, that sounds totally reasonable’ and before I could find the words to explain that no, actually, I hadn’t wanted to dye _everyone’s_ hair, just mine and yours, she’d gone off and borrowed this _enormous_ book on how to make your own hair dye from Manuela, and then she grabs me a few days later and gives me this huge bundle of pigments and fixatives she’s bought, and I didn’t know _what_ to do! So I just...went with it.”

Alva couldn’t help it. She broke down laughing, even in the face of her sister’s miserable expression. When she finally got herself back under control, she said, “And I’m sure that the opportunity to conspire with your darling professor on such a harmless plot didn’t factor into your decision at all.”

Edelgard was brick red. “I mean! Don’t _call_ her that! And what was I supposed to do, she’d gone to all that work and effort and expense…”

Alva ruffled her sister’s brown (brown!) hair. “Oh, you earned that. Don’t think I haven’t noticed your infatuation, you’re not as subtle as you think you are. Not about that, anyway,” she added, seeing alarm fill her sister’s face. “Anyway, you heard her. She threw herself in front of an axe for you the day you met—I’m pretty sure she likes you back.”

* * *

_Okay,_ Seteth thought, staring at Thunder Catherine’s suddenly orange hair, _this is definitely new._ “Ah, Catherine…? Your hair?”

“Apparently,” Catherine gritted out, “When Miss Eisner was reading up on how to restore her natural hair color, she left out the book on concocting hair dyes. And someone got ideas.”

_Ah, yes,_ thought Seteth, remembering Rhea’s obvious dismay when Professor Emrys walked in the day before with her hair once more a deep blue, rather than mint green. _That._ He looked at Catherine’s hair, again.

“Then this is not..?” Seteth asked, delicately.

“No. This was not something I did on purpose. Apparently, most of the students and some of the staff were victims of a prank whereby hair dye of various colors was added to our shampoo.”

“Ah,” said Seteth. Really, he could hardly think of anything else to say. _Flayn would have enjoyed this very much,_ he thought with a pang. _I shall have to write her a letter about it._

“I would appreciate it,” Catherine ground out, “If you would make it clear to the students that whatever they get up to on their own time, they should not involve the Knights of Seiros.”

Seteth thought about that. Absently, he asked, “Who else was effected?”

Catherine looked annoyed. “That I know of? Gilbert, Alois, Hanneman and Jeralt.”

“Not Manuela and Shamir?”

“I don’t know about Manuela, she hasn’t come out of her room yet today. They tried to get Shamir, apparently, but she noticed her shampoo smelled funny, and didn’t use it.”

Seteth heard the unspoken _and she thinks we’re all idiots for not spotting it ourselves._

“I see,” he said, gravely. “Well, thank you for bringing this to my attention.”

After Catherine left, Seteth decided that actually, he was rather hungry, and he would go to the dining hall and have something to eat. If that happened to give him front-row seats for this new, strange outbreak of chaos, well, that was just good luck.

He needed a break from worrying about what Rhea was trying to do to Professor Emrys, anyway. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I'm aware that I've taken some liberties with historical hair dye, but this is a world with pre-industrial blood transfusions, and I feel like the Rule Of Funny applies, here. 
> 
> (I'm having to try really hard not to stress the Phoenix symbolism Alva has going for her, because believe it or not I didn't actually intend for that to happen?) 
> 
> (Also, joining my persistent 'what tense does this fic want to be in' and 'whose POV is this from, anyway?' issues is 'no one can come to any sort of consistent conclusion as to what they want to call Emrys,' so this reads like some sort of Russian novel, where everyone has fifteen different names. Sorry about that.)


	14. In Which Everyone's Plans Go Wrong

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> THE HOLY TOMB.

A few nights before the confrontation in the holy tomb, Alva let herself into her sister’s room, shutting the door behind her when El looked up from the book she had on her lap.

“We need to decide how we’re going to handle the church, El,” said Alva, firmly.

Edelgard blinked. “We are going to announce that the church is an oppressive lie,” she reminded her sister.

Alva sighed. “Yes, but that’s not—look. The point I’m trying to make is, if you tell someone that something they’ve believed in their whole life is a lie, you need to give them a truth to put in its place. People _tell stories,_ El, it’s what we _do,_ and it’s really, really hard—nearly impossible—to destroy a _story._ So, we can’t just say “the church is a lie, stop repeating those stories,” we need to say “these stories are false, here are some other stories you should tell _instead._ ” There are a lot of people out there who believe in the goddess, who believe in her enough to fight for her, and they’re not necessarily bad people—but if we just tell them ‘everything you believe is a lie,’ Rhea’s people will simply keep telling them the same stories, and they _will fight us. On the other hand,_ If we say ‘ _The archbishop is corrupt and has been exploiting you to her own ends, telling you lies,’_ and we give them _specific lies that we can prove,_ then there will be plenty of religious people who will be willing to _listen to us._ El, we _literally_ have an avatar of the goddess on our side, we can denounce _Rhea_ and install _our teacher_ as a new prophet, and then dismantle the church from a position of authority, from the _inside,_ without having to fight _literally everyone._ We do not need—we cannot _afford_ —to make more enemies than we have to. Not all battles are fought with swords and axes.”

Edelgard looked indignant. “So, what, we have to give them a new false religion to take the place of the old one?”

“No, but El, we have to stick to _specific allegations._ Things we can _prove._ And we _tell a story._ We say, ‘The church of Seiros is false and to worship Seiros is forbidden,’ and we are _tyrants._ We say, ‘it is wrong to _force_ people to worship Seiros and the goddess,’ and we are _liberators._ ”

“Why does it _matter_ what they call us? As long as the church is destroyed—“

Alva finally raised her voice, exasperation winning out. “It _matters,_ El, because what people say about us will determine _who is willing to listen!_ It will be the difference between having allies and enemies! _Words have Power, El!_ It is better to do it _right_ than to do it _fast!_ ”

Edelgard looked like she was ready to scream. “ _Fast_ is better than _nothing,_ and _we do not have time!_ ”

Alva opened her mouth to respond to that, then got a good look at her sister’s face, and paused. Instead, she pressed Edelgard into the chair she’d risen from, and said, “Explain.”

Edelgard looked blank for a second. “You don’t know?”

“No, I don’t know why you’re acting like we have some sort of invisible time limit!”

“…the blood reconstruction surgery, it…reduces your life expectancy. Even if it works. They said I’d be lucky to reach 30.”

Alva stared at her in mute horror. Finally, she shook her head, roughly, shutting her eyes and raising her hands to rub her forehead. “No, no one told me! Let me think about this. There must be a way…”

Edelgard slumped. “You think I haven’t tried? That Hubert hasn’t? But we can’t go after those who slither in the dark until we’ve taken down the church, we need their power for that, and—”

Suddenly, Alva’s eyes snapped open. “No, El, we don’t. _We’ve got the professor._ Before, when we didn’t have anyone we could set up in opposition, we would have had to win by force, more or less, and yes, for that we would have needed those who slither in the dark. But we don’t have to take down the entire church, not immediately, we just have to take down _Rhea._ If we can put Professor Emrys in her place, we’ll still need to fight dissenters, but half the fight will be over right there—or, at least, half the fight will become a war entirely of tales, and we do not need force of arms to win a war of _stories_.”

Edelgard didn’t look convinced. “That would mean a war on two fronts, and I don’t know if we can afford that, not with our position so tenuous…”

Alva grimaced. “It will be chaotic, yes, but I think it’s still the safer bet—and we can use the whole western church rebellion, point out that the church under Rhea is willing to order the executions of everyone who disagreed with them, rather than argue, rather than try to find the reason, find out who caused the rebellion and why. Let them rally around us—we don’t have to move against those who slither in the dark immediately, we can wait and see if it’s working, and if it doesn’t, we can always fall back on brute force, but El, if we take Garreg Mach and depose Rhea, if we do this right, I really don’t think we’ll _need_ to.”

Edelgard hesitated. “Do you think our teacher would be willing? I hate to place upon her such a burden, to put her in such danger, making her the figurehead…”

Alva snorted. “This is the woman who suggested using Rhea’s attempt to sacrifice her to revive the Goddess as a causus belli. I’m pretty sure she’ll say yes. She won’t _like_ it, but she’ll say yes. And El—think about it. If we do this, it gives her _rank._ Right now, you are Emperor, and she’s—well, fundamentally, she’s just a mercenary. By doing this, we make her your _equal.”_

Finally, Edelgard gave in, and they went to talk to Emrys.

On the last night Alva was a student at the Monastery, she braced herself, and went to talk to Claude. She couldn’t do much, but at least she could give him a delicate warning, and make sure that someone would be able to take care of everyone left behind if everything went horribly wrong.

* * *

After the confrontation in the Holy Tomb, Claude felt hollow. Alva’s words came back to him, echoing: _Be careful. Rhea’s got something planned for tomorrow, and we’ve got a plan in place to counter her, but it’s going to be dangerous. We’re running low on options, but Professor Emrys is in danger, and so we’ve got to move._

At the time, he had stared at her, shaken by her unusually somber tone, and asked her if there was anything he could do to help, but she’d just grimaced. _Nothing I can ask you to do, not in good faith. I shouldn’t have told you as much as I have, but—I had to warn you. If this goes badly, if we fail, if this doesn’t fall out the way we hope, if we don’t come back—be careful. Don’t trust lady Rhea, or the church: I can’t...tell you more than that. Protect everyone if we can’t, okay? That’s what you can do to help._

He’d agreed, caught by the desperate note in her voice, and followed when she’d shown him how to operate the hidden doors to get in and out of the secret passage out of the monastery where she’d dragged him to talk. He understood, now, why she’d done that, why she’d chosen that spot: not just for privacy, and she hadn’t shown him how to operate it as a way to change the subject to something more cheerful: she’d wanted him to have a bolt hole, a way out, if things went badly. 

He still didn’t know what had happened in the holy tomb. Lady Rhea had announced that Edelgard was the Flame Emperor and had attacked them with imperial soldiers and demonic beasts in the holy tomb, desecrating the holy place, and that Professor Emrys had betrayed them by siding with her; that she and the other students, plus Captain Jeralt, were heretics and had been sentenced to death. 

When Dimitri had heard that Edelgard was the Flame Emperor, he’d gone completely mad. Sylvain and Felix, who had maintained a sort of unofficial dual membership in both the Black Eagle and Blue Lion houses, were being given a wide berth by everyone. Mercedes was one of the absent: like Lysithea, she had been among those present in the Holy Tomb, one of those who hadn’t come back. The idea that Mercedes, of all people, could be a heretic, was something that clearly shook the faith of the remaining students. Annette was beside herself.

Claude needed to talk to Alva. He was going to have to decide, soon, very soon, whether to grab as many students as he could and run, or fight, or...he didn’t know. But Alva wasn’t here—obviously, and he didn’t know where she was, so he couldn’t go find her to demand answers. Unless...

_She knew this might go badly,_

Claude thought, suddenly. _She knew, and she asked me to look after anyone who was left behind if they couldn’t come back. She showed me a way to get anyone left behind_ out _of the monastery._

That night, after lights out, Claude snuck out. He slipped into the secret passage and ran the whole length of it, coming out in the abandoned, ruined chapel with his heart pounding. The moon was bright, and as he caught his breath, he looked around, trying to spot a white-haired figure. From behind him, he heard an exhausted chuckle. “I thought you might come. I’m glad. You didn’t tell anyone else about the passage, did you?” 

Claude spun on his heel and stared in relief at the dirty, rather worse-for-wear and clearly exhausted figure of Alva, stepping into a patch of moonlight. 

“No, of course I didn’t. What do you take me for?”

“I didn’t think so, but I had to ask. You’re not carrying anything and you’ve not got any of the others with you, so I assume things haven’t gotten so bad at the monastery that you needed to cut and run—yet. Either that, or it was all you could do to get away yourself. Do we need to mount a rescue mission?”

Claude snorted. “No, but you do need to give me some explanations—what happened? What are you doing? Why?”

Alva sighed. “It’s... a bit of a long story. The first thing you need to know is that practically everything you know about the church of Seiros is a lie, and that Lady Rhea is actually the immaculate one, a dragon who has been masquerading as human to subjugate humanity for the last thousand-ish years.”

Claude stared. “...what.”

Alva smiled, weakly. “Yeah, I know. She’s responsible for the whole crest-nobility-isolationist culture-value system that rules today, and El wants to change that. She’s determined to change the world, to take down the church and stop Lady Rhea and her kind using it to subjugate people. She wants to abolish the hereditary nobility entirely, or at least take away their power. Also...Lady Rhea appears to have been trying to use Professor Emrys as a vessel to bring back the goddess, who was killed by Nemesis. That, we think, is what she was trying to do in the holy tomb, which is why we had to intervene.”

Claude didn’t even know where to begin. “...how do you know _any of this?”_

Alva winced. “So, okay. Starting at the beginning: we know the church of Seiros is a lie, because the first emperor of Adrestia was the human who helped Seiros beat Nemesis and the ten elites—who fought against her, the relics are man-made—and set up the church of Seiros to perpetrate the lie. So the true story has been handed down in the family ever since. There’s another group—you remember Solon and Kronya? They’re all part of an organization that really, really hate Rhea, and all of her kind, and want to kill them. They’ve been working in the shadows to try to take down Rhea for a very long time, and know a great deal about crests and crest stones and so on. Anyway, they call themselves Those Who Slither In The Dark, and we’re pretty sure they’re responsible for the tragedy of Duscur, among much else. In the interest of full disclosure, yes, at the moment we are...sort of cooperating with them, because we can’t afford not to, not yet. Hence the Flame Emperor. But, horrible as they are, they’ve been researching crests and crest stones for a very long time, so they figured out that Rhea was trying to use Professor Emrys to bring back Sothis, and when El heard that, she wasn’t about to let it happen. So, when Lady Rhea started talking about taking Professor Emrys down to the holy tomb to get some kind of revelation, El decided that we had to stop it.”

“...how? Wouldn’t it have been easier to just tell Teach?”

“We did, actually, but if she left, Rhea would have gone nuts trying to get her back, and the only places she could have hidden, she would have been vulnerable to those who slither in the dark. So, we decided to let her make her move, and when she did, we would raise a hue and cry, steal the crest stones, and hopefully cause enough chaos to depose Rhea. It was the only thing we could think of—all we know about the resurrection thing is that they’re necessary, somehow, so if we took them, Rhea couldn’t sacrifice Professor Emrys to bring back Sothis. We couldn’t tell anyone because we had no proof, and we couldn’t explain how we knew any of this without explaining about Those Who Slither In The Dark, and El wasn’t sure if anyone—especially Seteth, who is realistically the only person who could depose Rhea—would listen to _anything_ we had to say after we explained our connection to them, especially not since they kidnapped Flayn. So we decided to act. When everyone reached the tomb, Rhea started insisting that the professor sit on this big ceremonial looking throne, and there were crest stones everywhere, and we didn’t know if they were already hooked up to whatever mechanism was supposed to use the throne to overwrite the professor, so El brought out her soldiers, and told them to steal the crest stones—Rhea started screaming and ordered everyone to kill the thieves, and Professor Emrys told everyone to stand down. It looked like it was going to be okay, but then...” Alva took a deep breath. “Lady Rhea didn’t attack El—she ordered Professor Emrys to. She ordered Professor Emrys to kill her.”

Claude choked. “That—she expected that to work?!”

Alva laughed, weakly. “Apparently? And, of course, Professor Emrys didn’t—but not only did she refuse, she drew her sword and stood between Rhea and El. She protected her—wouldn’t let Rhea have her. Rhea went completely berserk, screamed something about ripping the professor’s heart out, and failures, and turned into the immaculate one and attacked us—which is the point when we grabbed everyone and bolted. We offered to let anyone who didn’t want to be involved in this go back—we’d wanted them there as _witnesses,_ we didn’t expect Rhea to turn into a giant _dragon,_ we really hadn’t known that she was an _ancient dragon_ —but while Rhea would never let the Eisners, El, Hubert and I live, not after that, she might have accepted the other students, who just stood there and fled after nearly getting crushed by falling debris created by the immaculate one. Lysithea offered to warp anyone who didn’t want to stay back to just outside the monastery walls, but no one wanted to risk it.”

Claude focused on one sane thing in a whirl of insanity. “Lysithea’s okay? I wasn’t sure—”

“Lysithea’s fine. Everyone’s fine, if a bit bruised and a lot scared and shocked. El’s been crowned, by the way, she’s Emperor now, and since the church is bound to start officially calling for her head immediately, after this, we’re going ahead with our plans—well, our backup plan. El’s declaring war on the church, tomorrow, and we’re going to attack Garreg Mach monastery as soon as we can. That’s one of the things I had to tell you, I should have said earlier—you need to get everyone who doesn’t want to be involved in this, out. Also, anyone who you think might be in danger, because they associated with us.”

Claude took a deep breath. “Alright. Edelgard’s the Adrestian Emperor, declaring war on the church, attacking Garreg Mach, abolishing crests and the nobility...what’s her view on Almyra?”

This time, it was Alva’s turn to stare. “...Almyra. Am I to assume this is something to do with your mysterious past? We haven’t talked about Almyra, specifically, but—she’d probably be willing to ally with them? I know she’s planning to make Brigid independent of Adrestia again, once Petra’s crowned. Don’t repeat that, incidentally, Petra doesn’t know—but she is. Almyra doesn’t believe in crests or the church, so El doesn’t feel the need to free them from the church’s oppression.”

“So, hypothetically...if Almyra was willing to help with Adrestia’s war with the church...Edelgard would be willing to negotiate an alliance?”

Alva was still staring. “Uh...yes, almost certainly, if I had to guess. I can’t actually promise anything, of course, but—”

“And if,” Claude continued, hardly able to believe his audacity, “certain houses of the Leicester Alliance were willing to treat with the Empire—on terms, you understand—would you say that the Empire is likely to remain on peaceful terms with the Leicester Alliance?”

Alva had stopped breathing. “Claude—you can’t possibly be suggesting—”

“ _Answer the question, Alva._ Right now, I’m not suggesting anything—this is a purely hypothetical scenario.”

“I...I don’t think El’s considered the possibility—none of us thought—I...it would depend on the terms, of course, but—probably? I’m not going to lie, some of the negotiations would probably be a little hostile, but...” Alva trailed off, staring in disbelief at Claude. Claude pursed his lips. “Alright. Let me...let me think. How much of this are you okay with me telling the other students, by the way?”

Alva paused, considering. “Be careful who you tell anything to—I don’t know if you want anyone knowing you contacted me. Or about the tunnel. If you can come up with an explanation for how you know...the events that occurred in the holy tomb, you can tell that story. El’s releasing her manifesto about her grievances against the church and her plans for a society where crests don’t matter—I have a copy of that, actually, somewhere, hold on—” Alva rummaged in her bag for a minute before pulling out a scroll. “Here, this is going to be released all over the empire over the course of the next week, you can say you found this copy in my room, or something. That’s fine. You can tell them that El had nothing to do with the tragedy of Duscur and is determined to punish the people responsible for that, also Remire, also Jeralt. Oh, and, uh, she didn’t agree to the kidnapping of Flayn. That too. The fact that El and Lysithea and I were created by experimentation...I would prefer not to get out, and please don’t say anything about those that Slither in the Dark. Otherwise, I think I trust your judgement?”

Claude took the manifesto. “Alright. Hypothetically speaking, if any students who wanted to join you, or even just to ask some questions peacefully before making up their minds, showed up here three nights from now—would anyone be here to meet them?”

Alva raised an eyebrow. “Hypothetically? I’d say that if a group of unarmed students showed up, leaving any baggage they had in the tunnel, they would probably find someone who would be willing to talk to them. Three nights from now, you said?”

Claude nodded. “Three nights from now.”

The next morning, Claude grabbed Felix and Sylvain on their way to breakfast. “Felix! Sylvain! I...need to talk to you. How much have you, uh, heard, about what happened in the holy tomb?”

Felix stared. “We’ve heard what everyone’s heard, which is not much. Why?”

Claude took a deep breath. “I...might know a bit more. How loyal do you feel to Prince Dimitri and the church, right now?”

Sylvain responded first. “Uh...I’ve never been particularly religious?”

Felix snapped, “The boar prince has completely lost his mind. He’s not fit to lead anything right now, and if he doesn’t get under control soon, he’s going to get himself killed, and a lot of other people besides. We won’t tell him anything you tell us, if that’s what you’re asking.”

Sylvain nodded. “Honestly, I don’t think we could tell him anything, he’s not really listening to anyone at all. And we won’t tell anyone you’re in contact with your imperial girlfriend, either.”

Claude sputtered “my imperial—!”

Sylvain rolled his eyes. “Come on, you’ve clearly been talking to someone, someone who is not a member of the church, based on your question, so it must have been one of the students who are missing. Who would have contacted you? Lysithea? Possible, but she’s not the type to make midnight assignations. Alva would, though, and more, she’d be able to pull it off.”

Claude scowled. “She’s still not my—whatever. Do you want to know, or don’t you?”

Felix and Sylvain exchanged a look. “We want to know.”

So Claude told them. Not everything, but enough: he told them that Edelgard had tried to steal the crest stones from the holy tomb, (‘someone told her that Rhea wanted to use them on the professor, somehow’), that she had failed, and that Rhea had ordered the professor to kill her for her attempted desecration. That when the Professor refused, and in fact moved to protect Edelgard, Rhea had turned into a giant dragon and attacked them, and they had fled. He showed them Edelgard’s manifesto, and explained that she was declaring war on the church, and that she wanted to create an egalitarian society where crests didn’t matter. He told them that Edelgard refused to be ruled by an inhuman creature who told lies, and executed anyone who disagreed with her. In the end, Sylvain broke the silence first. 

“A society where crests don’t matter, huh? It’s a great dream...”

Felix groaned. “Annette couldn’t imagine why Edelgard would attack Lady Rhea, and she couldn’t imagine why everyone would side with the Flame Emperor over Lady Rhea, especially Mercedes...we never even considered “because Lady Rhea turned into a giant monster and attacked them,” but we’ve seen what she does to anyone who goes against her, and at this point anyone who doesn’t immediately reject Edelgard and the Professor is going to be seen as ‘going against her.’ Of all the idiotic...”

Sylvain’s voice was soft. “We need to tell Ashe. Lonato...”

Claude cut them off. “We have to be careful. Don’t go around telling everyone—if word gets back to Rhea, or even Seteth or Catherine...”

All three winced. “Point taken. Why tell us, then?”

Claude inhaled, slowly. “Because you deserved to know. Because you deserved to make your own choices. Because I think, if you had been in the holy tomb with them, you’d be with them now.”

There was a beat of absolute silence. Sylvain and Felix stared at Claude in something like stunned realization. “You’re on their side, aren’t you?” Sylvain whispered. Claude raised an eyebrow. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Felix got to his feet. “I’ll talk to Annette. Sylvain, you talk to Ashe? Oh god, and we’ll need to talk to Ingrid...” Felix nodded at Claude. “Thank you. We’ll not tell anyone where we got the information.”

Claude snorted. “Tell me how it goes, yeah? Oh...You might want to pass on that Edelgard had nothing to do with Remire, or the kidnapping of Alva and that whole thing (though that might go without saying) and has vowed to bring those responsible to justice. Also Duscur. And someone should tell Annette that Mercedes is fine, and not being held against her will.” 

Felix’s eyes widened. “Any other...messages?”

“Nope. That’s it.”

As Felix and Sylvain went off to talk to Ashe and Annette, Claude exhaled. Alright. That was the Blue Lion house dealt with, and hopefully he wouldn’t have a furious prince Dimitri on his case by the end of the day. No helping that, however; anyway, he’d told the truth when he said that he honestly thought Felix and Sylvain rather wished they’d been in the tomb with the others. Now it was time for him to collar his own housemates—starting, he thought, with Leonie, who might be interested to hear that Lady Rhea had tried to murder Professor Eisner for refusing to kill her own student...

Three nights later, Claude was sitting in the ruined chapel with pretty much the entire remaining student body. Dimitri, by common consent, had not been told anything—they had left a letter for him, with Dedue, who had listened calmly to the story and agreed to try to get Dimitri to listen once they’d gone, and not to tell anyone anything until they’d left. He would do whatever Dimitri decided, he said calmly. Ashe had gone dead white as soon as he understood what Sylvain was telling him, and when he read the manifesto against the church, his hands had clenched into fists in his lap. “Lonato was right, wasn’t he?” He asked, soft as a whisper, and Sylvain just looked at him helplessly. When Ashe looked up, his eyes burned with a passionate fury that Sylvain had never seen there before, and glittered with tears. “I’m going,” he said, and Sylvain just nodded.

Ingrid, by contrast, had spent a day and a half trying to make up her mind whether to go or stay, but in the end Ashe had gone to talk with her. No one knew what they had said to each other in the two hours they’d spent locked in Ingrid’s room, but when they’d come out, Ingrid had looked fierce and said that she wouldn’t leave her Pegasus, but that she couldn’t, if she ever wanted to be a true knight, defend anything that was truly wicked—she would not fight for the church. She would protect Dimitri, if she could, but she would not obey him blindly. She and Marianne, it was decided, would remain behind with the animals, and would try to smuggle them out later that week. (Sylvain was honestly rather relieved—he hadn’t been happy at the idea of leaving his horse behind, but there was no way to fit a horse down the secret passage.) Annette had been nearly as hard; Annette hated the idea of fighting against her father, and there was no denying that, having abandoned his family for years in favor of the church, there was no way Gilbert/Gustave was going to fight against them now. In the end, however, Annette said that if Mercy had refused to return to the church, then they were wrong. (Felix’s obvious relief had come as no surprise to anyone.) 

Hilda had looked at Claude, asked him if he was absolutely sure, and when he answered that he trusted Teach more than he trusted Rhea, she’d just nodded and said “alright.” No one had asked her any questions, after that, though Marianne had looked a little teary about being left behind. Leonie, of course, had fixated on Captain Jeralt: there had never really been any doubt that she would follow where he and his daughter led. Ignatz, like Hilda, had taken his cue from Claude, which almost made him feel guilty, except that he had been planning to involve Ignatz in his schemes from day one. (Balthus took on the task of finding Yuri and Hapi, both of whom had more or less retreated into the Abyss, wary of reprisals against anyone with ‘questionable’ histories.)

Claude had left Lorenz and Raphael for the last, largely due to the fact that he didn’t trust Raphael to keep the secret longer than absolutely necessary, and he had no idea which way Lorenz would jump. Raphael would follow Ignatz to the end of the earth, however, and Lorenz, for all his posturing, was a good lord, and the idea of a diplomatic resolution of the pending war with Adrestia was enough to sway him into at least sitting out the battle. 

Just as Claude was beginning to worry that something had kept her, Alva stepped out of the forest, Teach a half step behind her, eyeing the collected students. “I admit, Claude, that I wasn’t expecting you to bring our entire class.”

Claude smirked at her. “So little faith!”

Alva swatted him. “You know full well I’ve got plenty of faith—it’s one of my best skills. Alright, how many of you are just here to get some answers?”

Leonie stepped forward. Claude, who knew she had left a very full pack in the passageway, waited to hear what she’d say next. “I have one question—for the Professor. One of the Flame Emperor’s people tried to kill Captain Jeralt. How can you forgive that?”

Emrys looked at her. “Edelgard did not order, sanction, or condone the murder of my father, and Kronya was not one of her people. She was not responsible in any way for either that or what happened in Remire village, or her sister’s kidnapping, and she didn’t know about any of those plans, including the plan to kidnap Flayn. She took the risk of revealing the Flame Emperor to see Flayn safely returned, once she found out. She has her own reasons to hate those responsible, even more than we do. There will be no forgiveness, not for what they did.”

Leonie nodded, just once. “Alright, then.”

Alva raised an eyebrow. “What, that’s all? No further questions, everyone here is satisfied?”

Annette, hands twisted into a tight ball in front of her, looked from Emrys to Alva and back. “Mercy. Is Mercy really—”

“Mercedes is fine, Annette. Shaken, but fine. She saw the head of the church transform into a monster, and then came up against the fact she’d been told a lot of lies. She might have returned, but she chose not to. She’ll be very happy to see you, too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this is another chapter where I wrote the bulk of it aaagees ago, and had to edit it to allow for certain course adjustments I have made since. (Originally, Jeralt died, Flayn was around, and Emrys didn't know what was going on ahead of time, for example.) 
> 
> If anyone's wondering why Alva goes from "We need to make allies, hopefully people will join us and we won't have to fight _everybody_ ," to being totally shocked at Claude's overtures, you need to remember that Alva's plan was to catch Rhea, take her down, and tell everyone immediately that she had tried to sacrifice Emrys, who had been blessed by the goddess, in an attempt to ressurect Sothis. She did not plan for GIANT DRAGON and having to retreat, unable to tell her story properly, so they had to go with plan B, brute force assault on the church, at least temporarily. From Alva's perspective, this was very nearly a worst-case scenario: they didn't get the crest stones, they didn't take down Rhea, and everyone found out that El was the Flame Emperor, and _Rhea_ is still controlling the story. She really, really wasn't expecting Claude to take the Flame Emperor reveal more-or-less in stride, much less for him to throw all his weight behind getting the whole Alliance to fall in with Edelgard on this. (Next time, we'll get to see Dimitri's reaction, and/or Seteth's. If it's Dimitri, you all get the explanation of the title reference!)


	15. The Song of the Mad Knight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dimitri's reaction. (Also, at long last, the explanation of the title.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For reference, anyone who wants to listen to the song Alva sings here while you read can find it here: [Here's a link, including the reprise. ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfHnzYEHAow)

When one of the sentries reported that Dimitri and Dedue appeared to be approaching the provisional camp where those who had fled the monastery were staying, a general murmur went up. “Are they armed?” asked Hubert, his voice sharp. “Yes,” said the sentry, “but they come alone.”

Edelgard rose to her feet, determined. “I will go speak with them, then.”

At that, a whole clamor of voices arose, the general consensus being that this was foolish, dangerous, that Dimitri had been unhinged at best by the news, and was unlikely to be reasonable, but Edelgard stood firm. “He is owed, at least, an explanation, and he will not stop until he sees me.”

“Then we are coming with you,” retorted Hubert. “He will have to get through us, if he wishes to harm you.”

“What, _all_ of you?” asked Edelgard, incredulous. “He’ll hardly think we come to parley if we show up in force!”

Professor Emrys spoke up, then. “Felix, you know him best—would it be better or worse if he saw you and Sylvain standing with Edelgard? Is he likely to pause, because you’re his friends, or assume betrayal?”

Felix thought about that, for a moment, and answered, “Honestly, I don’t think it will matter. The boar isn’t actually capable of reasoning, all he cares about is blood and revenge.”

“Does he know you’re here?”

Felix shook his head. “No, we just said that we didn’t want to be involved, so we were leaving. It seemed safer—for Ingrid, if nothing else.”

“Then we’ll try to keep that dark, if possible. So just those of us who he knew were with us in the Holy Tomb—everyone else, stay here.”

“I would just like to repeat, for the record,” said Felix, pointedly, “That I think this is a terrible idea, and if any of you get yourselves killed doing it, I will never forgive you.”

“Your opinion is noted, and we will take appropriate precautions,” said Edelgard, dryly.

* * *

They met Dimitri a ways out from the camp, and his appearance did not seem promising—he was in total disarray, clutching an enormous spear in his hand. When Alva hailed him, cautiously, his head snapped up, and he snarled, “Where is Edelgard?!”

“My _sister,”_ stressed Alva, in a voice of forced calm, “Is behind me. She is willing to answer your questions, provided you _put down your lance and calm down._ ”

Dimitri brandished his lance, and said “I need no answers! Take me to her, and I will have her head for this! How dare she—”

“I am not going to let you anywhere _near_ her unless you _put down the lance and calm down.”_

“Then move aside, and let me pass! I will find her myself, and make her pay!”

As Dimitri stepped forward threateningly, Alva drew her rapier, holding it loosely in one hand, but ready. Still in the voice of forced calm, she repeated, “I just said that I am not going to let you near her unless you calm down, Dimitri.” 

At the end of his tether entirely, Dimitri lashed out, his powerful lance aimed straight at Alva’s chest. “If you’re determined not to move aside, then you can die with her!”

Alva dodged quickly, her slim rapier looking like nothing so much a toy in the face of his enormous lance. “Oh, for—” she exclaimed, fury and exasperation competing for primacy in her voice. Dimitri’s rant continued, ringing out over the sound of metal on metal, and she had had enough. In a voice that was suddenly hard, almost harsh, she snapped, “ _No.”_

With a single, swift movement, she grabbed the shaft of his spear in her left hand, and Neith's red marking flashed on her forehead for a split second, and when it vanished, the lance went with it. Dimitri, off balance due to the sudden loss, stumbled, and Alva took him to the ground and left him there, standing above him, her sword point at his throat. “ _Listen to me, you fool._ El is not your enemy! We are not your enemy!”

Dimitri snarled, jerking towards her, heedless of the sword point a bare inch from his adam’s apple. Alva shifted her weight and moved her free hand in a complicated gesture, Neith's red mark flashing again, and suddenly Dimitri was restrained by cords of light that appeared out of nowhere. Dedue, who had been making his way towards his prince, was abruptly pulled up short in his advance toward the two figures by a shimmering bubble of light.

Dimitri, restrained, snarled again, an animalistic sound of fury that stood in dramatic counterpoint to the clear, ringing voice of Alva. “Go ahead and kill me, then! See what good it does you!”

“ _What did I just say?”_

By now, everyone who had been hanging back to give Alva room to move and speak had come forward a bit, everyone staring at the spectacle of the prince of Faerghus bound and on his knees before the Emperor’s sister, her blade at his throat.

Dimitri started laughing, a wild, mad laughter that raised the hair on everyone’s necks. “ _Now_ you refuse to kill me? After starting a war for power? After everything you’ve done? Why?!”

Silently, Alva looked at him. After an interminable moment, she replied, softly. “I could tell you in some detail, but I don’t think you’d really understand. I don’t think you’re really willing to listen. So, instead, I’ll just say: I do not want to kill you, Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd, because of what you once were, and what you could have been, and perhaps still could be. Because, while killing you might be expedient, to do so without giving you the chance to return to yourself and become the man you have the potential to be would be wrong.”

“Wrong? Wrong?! What do you care about right and wrong, you killed my parents! You murdered them all! The tragedy of Duscur! All those lives—"

“ _Neither Edelgard nor I ordered, condoned, or had anything to do with the tragedy of Duscur.”_

“You lie! Why—”

Alva interrupted him, the new, harsh note back in her voice, clear and ringing out hard as diamond. “Why? Why are we fighting? Why are we trying to make a better world, where such things will never happen again? You can ask that, who have suffered so by the way of this world?”

Exhaling roughly, Alva’s grip on her sword hilt tightened, then released. “Fine. Oh great and chivalrous Prince of Faerghus, I will put it in words you can understand. Perhaps you’ll even have heard them before.”

So saying, Alva inhaled, deeply, slowly, and recited: “‘it is the mission of each true knight. His duty—nay, his privilege!’—have you not heard these lines?” 

Dimitri stared at her, bewildered and still furious, and hissed, “you would call this _duty?”_

Alva smiled, and it was not a bitter, twisted thing, but a smile of unexpected and incredible sweetness, and in a clear, musical voice, she sang:

“ _To dream the impossible dream,_  
 _to fight the unbeatable foe...”_

Next to Linhardt, Dorothea was staring in complete astonishment, mouthing the words along with Alva, whose voice was suddenly soaring above everything else, bright and pure and ringing like a silver bell. 

“ _To bear with unbearable sorrow,_  
 _to run where the brave dare not go...”_

Emrys suddenly noticed that Edelgard, standing beside her, was trembling slightly. Startled, she glanced at her face, only to see tears shining in her eyes. “Edelgard?” She whispered softly, inquiring.

“I’ll explain later,” Edelgard whispered back, voice choked. 

In the center of the expanding circle of silence, Alva continued to sing.

“ _To right the unrightable wrong,_  
 _to love, pure and chaste, from afar..._  
 _to try, when your arms are too weary,_  
 _to reach the unreachable star!”_

Suddenly, Edelgard dashed the tears from her eyes and raised her head, adding her voice to her sister's, both voices ringing out over the stillness, fierce and full of conviction. 

“ _This is my quest—to follow that star!_  
 _No matter how lonesome, no matter how far!_  
 _To fight for the right, without question or pause:_  
 _to be willing to march into hell for a heavenly cause!”_

When Edelgard’s voice joined her sister’s, Dimitri jerked, staring from one to the other, before Alva recaptured his full attention by tapping his cheek with her swordpoint. The two voices rose, together, until they hit the triumphant crescendo of _heavenly cause_ , only to abruptly cut off.

In a more normal voice, no longer singing, Alva continued: “You, Prince Dimitri, don’t care for the living, but only the dead. You don’t care to determine why the thing happened, just to punish those you blame—not even those responsible, just those you blame. You have no intent to prevent it happening again, to determine why it happened in the first place, to protect others from the same fate. You don’t believe you can change the world, so you just want everyone to be happy with it the way it is. But you’re _wrong._ Even if we fall, even if we fail, the world will be a better place for us having tried.” She paused, and when she began to sing again, it was in a different voice, soft and reverent, like singing a hymn, rather than a battle song.

“ _And the world will be better for this:_  
 _that one girl, scorned and covered with scars,_  
 _still tried, with her last ounce of courage,_  
 _to reach the unreachable star.”_

In the silence that followed, Alva sheathed her sword at her hip, and stepped back. “I told you once that you’ve been living in the past, Prince Dimitri. You didn’t listen to me then, and I don’t know if you’re listening now, but it still needs to be said. Look to the future. Find a star to reach for, a world to build. For everyone who died in the tragedy of Duscur, and every one of your people who is suffering _today._ For everyone who _will_ suffer tomorrow, if the world does not change.”

With a final gesture of her hand, Alva dispelled the barrier surrounding them, but left the cords of light that bound Dimitri’s arms and legs. Keeping her gaze fixed on Dimitri, she beckoned Dedue forward, saying simply, “The bonds will fade in an hour or so. You should be able to get him most of the way back to the monastery by then. He’s just going to get himself killed if he tries this again, and I’d prefer to avoid that.”

Without waiting for an answer, Alva turned away from the pair and walked, calm and sure footed, to stand before her sister. “Leave him to tilt at his windmills, El. We’ve a dragon to slay.”

* * *

After Dimitri and Dedue had departed and they’d all made their way back to camp, Emrys pulled Edelgard aside, her expression one of almost painful concern. “Edelgard? What was that about?” 

Edelgard took a deep breath. “I told you about my nightmares, about what it was like under the palace? There was...Alva is older than I am. She also has the crest of Seiros, so they were very hopeful of her, but she was never concerned about herself, just us. She sang. To keep us from despair, she sang, until her voice gave out in the darkness. At first, she sang anything she could think of, as much variety as possible—as it got worse, she started to repeat herself more and more often. The song she sang most was _the impossible dream._ Down there, in the darkness, I heard the screams of my siblings, the tears...and Alva’s voice. Singing. _To bear with unbearable sorrow,_ she sang. It kept me sane, I think. Something to hold to. I think the worst day of my life was the day her singing stopped. To hear her sing it again....”

Emrys reached out and pulled Edelgard into a tight hug. “I’m sorry. Did it give you flashbacks?”

“No, not really. You’d think it would have, but...it gave me strength when I had nothing else. It was...nice, I think, to hear it again.”

They sat like that, silent, holding each other tight, as Edelgard cried. Cried for the siblings she’d lost, for Dimitri’s madness, for everyone who had been sacrificed, and for a song in the darkness, to bring them home. 

* * *

“ _To Dream the impossible dream...”_

Long into the night, the voice of Alva von Hresvelg echoed through Dimitri’s head. He’d gone there trying to kill them, and she’d… She’d disarmed him, but she’d not killed him—she hadn’t even hurt him. Instead, she’d _sung to him._ And in the end, she’d sent him home, with a single line tossed over her shoulder. “ _Leave him to his windmills, we’ve a dragon to slay.”_

_A dragon to slay_   
_A dragon_   
_A dragon_   
_A dragon_

Prince Dimitri Blaiddyd snapped out of his reverie with a start. _A dragon?_ Edelgard, _Edelgard_ was going to slay a dragon? Why? What dragon? He’d have assumed the line was a joke, or a metaphor—he clearly wasn’t doing anything with windmills—but there was something in the half-ironic way that Alva had said the word that made him doubt that. _A dragon to slay._ And she’d sung the last few lines of the song, before that, in a totally different voice, a voice that sounded like it accepted the possibility of death, of failure. Had someone said something to him about a dragon, or a monster? Dimitri couldn’t remember.

The next morning, Dimitri tracked down Professor Manuela. She used to sing opera, right? He remembered something about that. She would know about the song Alva had sung, if anyone did. 

He found her in the greenhouse. Awkwardly, Dimitri cleared his throat, and said, “Professor Manuela? I have a question...”

Manuela started, looking up at him in slight embarrassment, and he wondered idly why she always seemed out of it in the mornings. 

“Yes? If this is about Edelgard’s betrayal—”

Dimitri winced. “Not...exactly. Look, I need to know about a song.”

“A...song. I’m assuming it’s a specific song?”

“Yes, I heard it—yesterday. I feel like there might have been more significance to it than just the words themselves.”

Manuela raised an eyebrow. “Well, alright then—what’s the song?”

Dimitri ran a slightly trembling hand through his hair and grimaced. “I...don’t actually know. I can tell you how it went, though— _this is my quest, to follow that star, no matter how lonesome, no matter how far...”_

Manuela blinked. “The Impossible Dream? That’s an old song—you’ve got the words a bit wrong, there, it should be ‘no matter how _hopeless,_ ’ not ‘no matter how lonesome.’ Who’s been singing you the song of the mad knight?” 

This time, Dimitri blinked. “The mad knight? What, why is he mad?”

Manuela sighed. “It’s—a complex song, really. It’s from a two-part opera, and it’s originally sung by a knight who goes completely insane after a tragic accident kills his lover. He thinks she’s still alive, but kidnapped by giants, and he goes on a quest to save her—only there are no giants, so he just does a lot of damage attacking windmills and things thinking they’re enemies. But there is a real enemy, and that’s the lord of the next country over, who really did have something to do with the death of his lover, and is a real villain besides—exploiting the people and executing anyone who tries to speak up against him. Anyway, von Quijote—that’s the mad knight—he winds up imprisoned in the wicked lord’s dungeons, with a lot of other people, all of whom are going to be tortured to death—it’s really a rather unpleasant setup—and they all scorn him for being an idealistic idiot, and for being insane, of course. But he sings to them, and that’s his song, _the impossible dream,_ he sings it in the dungeon, to the other prisoners, to express why he has no regrets over having devoted his life to fighting evil. And it inspires them, you see—and then he dies. And that’s how the first night of the opera ends, with them all singing _the impossible dream_ defiantly at their jailers.”

Dimitri stared, unable to make sense of that. “But...he’s a madman, and he’s been fighting inanimate objects.”

Manuela sighed. “Yes, but the point is what came out of it—and, of course, that’s the next bit: stop interrupting me. Do you want to hear the full story of the song, or not?”

Dimitri blushed, and hung his head. “Yes, I’m sorry. Go on.”

Manuela exhaled. “Alright, then. The second night of the opera opens, again, in the dungeon of the wicked lord, with all the prisoners. It turns out that there’s an opportunity they’ll get—not to escape, but to kill the wicked lord. They’ll all get themselves killed, but they could kill the wicked lord. Several of them are very much in favor of this, they’re determined to get revenge, but one old man says ‘but there’ll just be a new wicked lord to replace him, and even if the next lord is good, how do we know the one after him will be? No, revenge is no good, what we need to do is make it _better.’_ And everyone starts yelling, and then the old man says he has a better idea, and tells the others that if they don’t kill the lord, they can get one of them—the youngest, a boy of about ten—out of the dungeon. They could smuggle the boy free. He would have to leave, not to come back until he had an army and could defeat the wicked lord and take over the whole region, but they could get him out. They all argue, and the boy himself is in favor of the revenge plan, because he doesn’t think he could do anything, and it would mean wasting their one chance of revenge—but then the old man starts singing the mad knight’s song back at them all, but with different emphasis: he stresses the _unbearable sorrow, unbeatable foe, unrightable wrong_ lines. And in the end, the prisoners forego their revenge to get the boy out—and they all die in the process, but the boy.” And Manuela paused, then, her eyes fixed on Dimitri’s face, before she seemed to see whatever it was she was looking for, and continued.

“So, we have this boy, who is about ten, who has just been got free of the dungeon, and he has to go run away, and start making a life for himself in the next kingdom over. He has nothing but the clothes on his back and his name, and the promise he made to the other prisoners, but he’s fierce and stubborn and determined. And he does it. He gathers a group of criminals, and disaffected commoners, and some knights who decide that his cause is just, and when they baulk at marching on the wicked lord, he sings the song to them again, as a rallying cry. They agree to help him, and they succeed—they depose the wicked lord. It takes him over a decade, all told, but he does it. _The Impossible Dream_ becomes the young lord-to-be’s leitmotif; every time he shows up, it plays in the background. In the end, the opera closes with the newly crowned lord, having defeated the wicked lord, standing back in the dungeon, where he was imprisoned so long ago, standing over the place where the mad knight died, where the clever old man who figured out how to get him out of the dungeon sang his song at the others. And he sings it again, one last time, and affirms that he did what they wanted, that their sacrifices weren’t wasted: that the world is a better place for what they did.”

Dimitri had stopped breathing about halfway through her explanation, and when she finished, he started again with a gasp. “That’s—that’s the song? That’s...”

Manuela nodded. “Yes, that’s the song. I’m a little surprised you’ve never heard it; it’s rather the ultimate paean to the chivalric ideal. So, who’s been singing it to you?”

“Alva von Hresvelg. When I—I tried to attack Edelgard yesterday, and she disarmed me and called me a fool, and when I asked her why she didn’t just kill me, she said something about ‘for the sake of the man I could have been, could still be,’ and then I asked what they thought they were doing, starting a war like this, causing so much suffering, and Alva—”

“Sang that, did she? I see. It got to you, I can tell. It’s a powerful song.”

“And in the end—Before she sent me back here—she said something like: ‘leave him to his windmills, we’ve a dragon to slay.’ And that’s been bothering me, too—I understand the windmill bit, now, but I don’t understand the dragon—I mean, the way she said it—it sounded...literal.”

“Well. I do know that another name for a fool’s errand can be _tilting at windmills,_ when someone is doing something ridiculous and at best useless, at worst counterproductive—that’s a reference to the mad knight’s adventure in the beginning. As for dragons...well, they’re certainly part of the chivalric lore, but they’re not part of the story of the mad knight, I can tell you that much. I don’t know. Alva’s rather a fanciful child, sometimes, but...Well. I mean, I don’t know of any dragons she could be trying to slay, do you?”

Dimitri admitted that he didn’t, either, but he couldn’t shake the terrible feeling that he really _ought_ to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hooo boy. So, this chapter is a thing. To start with, I should mention that I am not quite sure how well-hidden the 'provisional Imperial camp' where El's people are staying is, but I decided to make it somewhere Dimitri could find, because I needed him to come talk to people. (I'm working on the assumption that the reason the church isn't pursuing them is more because the entire imperial army is marching towards them, and they're battening down the hatches for a siege.) 
> 
> This is, for me, an interesting chapter. I'd like to say, for the record, that I wrote this _long before_ Alva managed to save Sothis and Jeralt, so I was planning for this to be the big 'Alva's singing is magic' moment, but, uh, that didn't happen. So we've just got more stress on a somewhat overpowered characteristic. Sorry about that, but a) I love the scene between Manuela and Dimitri, and this way of revealing what the whole 'Impossible Dream' thing is about, so, I kept it, and b) I really _couldn't_ think of another way to get through to Dimitri, and I didn't want to have to actually _kill him_. That said, it probably still wouldn't have worked if not for the cat-therapy and the midnight conversation about madness, beforehand?
> 
> On that note: While _the impossible dream_ is a real song (it's gorgeous, you all should go listen to it if you aren't familiar with it, if you didn't check out the link in the beginning--[Here it is again. ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfHnzYEHAow)), the two-part opera that Manuela describes is totally made up. In the real world, it's actually from a show called _Man of La Mancha_ , which is sort of based on Don Quixote, but set during the spanish inquisition, and really kind of dark. But the song is fantastic, and the bit where the show ends with all these doomed prisoners singing it at their jailers after the man who originally sang it to them dies, is absolutely real. 
> 
> I should mention, too, that ever since I played through CF, I've thought of _the impossible dream_ as the perfect song for Edelgard. (I know Edge of Dawn is her song, but...) It seems so appropriate for her, and while I don't think she'd really see it as representing herself per se, I thought it would speak to her, and I wanted someone to sing it _to her._ So, in a way, this was the birth of Alva: my very first conception of her was as a voice in the dark, singing _the impossible dream_ , when they were trapped under the palace. When I was building Alva's character, I kept coming back to this song: it's a constant refrain of this story. There's a spoken passage, at one point, that runs: What is sickness to the body of a knight errant? For each time he falls, he will rise again, and woe to the wicked! 
> 
> (Incidentally, I tend to misremember that line as _What is weakness to the body of a true knight? for each time he is fallen, he will rise again, and woe to the wicked_ , so that's probably how the line runs in my made-up version of the show.) 
> 
> ...but anyway, that also is an important theme here, that no matter what, no matter how many times they are struck down, they will rise again. Alva, in particular, uses _Woe to the wicked!_ as a battlecry. (I also gave her _onward to glory_ , another line from the same source, for a victory quote, half-sardonic, and "I'll march into hell," for when she's low on HP.)
> 
> (oh, and, uh, Dimitri really wasn't listening to the part of the explanation where Rhea turned into a dragon. Unfortunately.) 
> 
> I still haven't figured out what to do with Dimitri from here. He's been snapped out of the worst of his raving madness, but--do I take him the way AM does, once he snaps out of it with the death of Rodrigue? Do I take him in another direction? I'm not sure. (Next time will be Seteth's attempts to piece together _what the thrice blighted deuce_ is going on, and what he thinks of all this. That will also be interesting.)
> 
> On a somewhat-unrelated note: Guys. This fic? The word document where it lives? is _98 pages long._ When I started posting this, the document containing all the odds and scraps I had written? was _maybe_ 40 pages, max, and that includes a lot of variant versions of several scenes, several bits that were scrapped entirely, and about ten pages I haven't even gotten to yet, because they cover something that happens _after_ the battle of Garreg Mach. That means I've written something like 70 pages _just since I started posting this._ That's insane. It's also, far and away, the longest thing I've written. So, uh. Thanks for keeping me going? I'd never have gotten this far without your support.


	16. In Which Seteth is Fed Up.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seteth demands some explanations.

Seteth glared at Rhea. “Rhea, you are going to tell me the truth about what happened down there, or _so help me,_ I will _leave_ and just let you deal with the fallout of whatever you have done _on your own._ I am not going to stand by and _defend_ you if you keep _lying to me!_ ”

Rhea picked up a paperweight from Seteth’s desk and threw it at the wall. “I _have_ told you the truth! That is what _really happened!_ ”

Seteth growled. It was a low, inhuman sound, and he normally didn’t give his non-human traits free reign like this, but he was holding on to his temper by a thread, and he felt it was justified. “Rhea, you told me that when that child was born, it was stillborn, and you brought it to life by implanting the crest of flames in its _heart_. That is _perilously_ close to using a living sacrifice to bring back the dead, and it is _forbidden,_ but since _no one was harmed,_ I let it go. You said that you thought she bore the reincarnated soul of Sothis, without her memories or powers, and that when she came back with green hair, that she’d just started to regain access to her powers, and that perhaps taking her down to the Holy Tomb would help restore her memories. You _swore to me_ that all you were going to do was have her sit on the throne, in case that helped her remember. I never really thought anything would come of that, but it seemed harmless enough, so I said yes, fine. And now, now you are telling me that when they got down there, Edelgard _revealed she was the flame emperor, and ordered her soldiers to steal the crest stones,_ and Rhea, that is _nonsense,_ and do you know how I know that is nonsense? Because there is _no way_ that they could have _known_ that there were crest stones down there, and because the Flame Emperor’s soldiers kidnapped Flayn, _whom Edelgard and her sister helped Emrys rescue,_ and they tried to murder _Emrys’s father,_ and moreover they also kidnapped _Alva,_ in an attempt to murder _Emrys herself,_ and I do not believe, Rhea, not even for a _moment,_ that Edelgard would endanger those two women, not with how obviously she adores them.”

“But it’s _true!”_ Screamed Rhea, almost hysterically.

Implacably, Seteth raised his voice, talking over her. “You _also_ say that, at that point, you ordered Emrys and the other students to capture Edelgard and her soldiers, and that instead, they attacked _you,_ and summoned _demonic beasts_ which blasted a hole in the wall of the holy tomb, through which they escaped! And Rhea, even if I can imagine them attacking you if you made some attempt on Emrys, remember that _I know what it looks like when you transform and destroy things in draconic form!_ I do not know how you have managed to retain the ability to transform like that without losing your mind entirely, and quite frankly, unless you did something horrifying to achieve it, _I really do not care._ But do you know what it looks like to me? It looks like you took young Emrys down to the Holy Tomb, and tried to do something _horrible_ to her, tried to _actually sacrifice a young woman to whom I owe Flayn’s life,_ and that when her students tried to stop you, _you transformed into your draconic form and attacked them._ And if you did that, Rhea, if you violated the taboo on that scale, _I will not defend you from the consequences!”_

Seteth was panting, now, having raised his voice to a shout, and Rhea was yelling at him to be quiet, and he _did not care._ He had held his tongue when Rhea had returned from the Holy Tomb, alone, telling this outlandish story, because he couldn’t see a way to contradict her without explaining his own identity as Cichol, but he had not liked it then, and he had done his best to prevent her circulating the story. Then Edelgard had declared war on the church, and effectively the _entire remaining student body_ had disappeared, practically without a trace, and he’d found a copy of Edelgard’s manifesto against the church left on his desk, which was unfortunately fairly damning, and he had not realized how far Rhea had gone in her determination to rule unquestioned, and the only students who were still here were two girls who practically _lived_ in the stables, and the Prince of Faerghus (who had turned into some sort of raving madman) and his shadow, and Seteth was just _done._ He was done risking his safety and Flayn’s to try to protect Rhea, done defending her, done letting her tell him ridiculous falsehoods in an attempt to deny her own actions, _done._

And Rhea was still insisting, in the face of everything, that her completely implausible story was _actually true._

Seteth gave up. He was not getting anywhere by pressing Rhea, and he did not have time to waste on fruitless pursuits. He turned to leave, but was stopped by Rhea’s hand grasping his arm tightly, fingers like talons. “Wait!” she rasped, and her eyes, when he turned to look at her, were wild. “If you will not—even if you do not—believe me, I ask that you consider remaining to guard those innocents who live here, who rely on us to protect them! Please!”

Seteth looked at his sister, bitter resentment rising in his chest, and said, coldly, “Unlike you, I remember my oaths and my responsibilities. It is well, then, that I already gave the order to evacuate all non-combatants to Zanado, and am negotiating with the inhabitants of the Abyss to permit anyone who wishes to stay to retreat into the catacombs, which still bear functional defenses, in extremity. How lucky we are,” he added, with truly biting sarcasm, “to have retained access to the ancient sanctuary, in this time of crisis.”

Without waiting for Rhea to respond, Seteth jerked his arm free of her grip, and strode out of the room. After all, he still had preparations to make—as well as decisions.

Seteth was in the middle of packing up the last of the medical supplies to be transported down into the reception hall, where they were setting up a larger, emergency infirmary, when he was approached by a frowning Manuela. “Seteth? Do you know of any dragons? Not literally, but something that might have been called a dragon?”

Seteth froze. Clearing his throat, to try to disguise his rising horror, he responded cooly, “That’s an unusual question, Manuela, why do you ask?”

“Well, it’s probably nothing, but apparently Prince Dimitri tried to attack Edelgard’s camp, yesterday, and he was turned away. He’s not nearly as unstable as he was, before, but I’m more interested in what he described to me of the encounter—”

And Manuela proceeded to recount her conversation with Dimitri, including the significance of _the_ _impossible dream,_ which Seteth had never heard of either, and Dimitri’s account of Alva’s parting words to him. “—so you see, it seems to have left a very deep impression on Prince Dimitri, which struck me as odd. And, well, Alva’s a fanciful child, but given the circumstances, it seems odd to me that she would mix her metaphors by saying ‘dragon to slay,’ rather than just saying something like ‘we’ve a wicked lady to fell.’”

Distantly, Seteth heard his own voice saying something along the lines of “How odd, I wonder what she could have meant by that, I’m sorry I cannot help you,” before he excused himself and locked himself in his rooms. _A dragon to slay,_ she’d said, and if he’d wanted confirmation that Rhea had transformed and attacked the students in the Holy Tomb, he could hardly ask for anything more. _Sothis, is this you sending me a sign? Are you trying to tell me something?_

Hands shaking, Seteth pulled himself together. It was time for him to get some answers, and if that meant doing something perhaps slightly risky, he was willing to take that chance. 

Seteth landed his wyvern in an open field, a mile or so out from where he could see smoke rising that probably indicated Edelgard’s camp, and settled in to wait. He made as great a spectacle of it as possible: he pulled out his notebook and resumed drafting his most recent fable, while his wyvern Leofstan sunned himself.

He had just gotten engrossed in his writing, when he heard the voice of Claude von Riegan hailing him from the edge of the woods. Calmly, he closed his notebook, using a piece of ribbon to mark his place, and rose. “Yes?”

“So, uh, I have to admit, we were not expecting you! We appreciate the, ah, lack of violence? Restraint? But, also, kind of have to wonder what you’re doing here. So.”

Seteth raised an eyebrow at the uncharacteristic rambling. “I am here,” he replied calmly, “to get some answers. Starting, if possible, with a more accurate accounting of what exactly took place in the Holy Tomb, which I would prefer to receive firsthand, so if you could find someone who was present for that particular episode, I would appreciate it.”

Behind Claude, another figure stepped out from behind a tree. “Will I do?” asked Alva, head cocked to one side. Seteth eyed her, noting that while she looked definitely rather worn, she appeared to be uninjured and bore no obvious signs of duress. “Yes,” he answered, finally, “I think you’ll do nicely.”

“So, before I say anything, I’m going to have to ask you to promise to hear me out,” said Alva, sounding vaguely nervous. “This is a long story, and I can’t explain what happened in the Holy Tomb without explaining a lot of other things, first. Some of which I’m going to have to have to ask you to promise not to repeat to anyone, because it could be dangerous.”

Seteth…really didn’t like the sound of that, but he could understand their wanting to take precautions, all things considered. “Without you, I might not have been able to rescue Flayn,” said Seteth, slowly. “So, by that debt, I swear that, as long as you tell me the truth, I will hear you out, and as long as I may do so without endangering Flayn, I will not reveal to anyone anything you reveal to me in confidence. Is that acceptable?”

Alva blinked, then smiled. “In that case, I claim the debt you acknowledge, and charge you by it to keep your word, swearing in turn that what I shall tell you is the truth, to the best of my knowledge.” 

There was a dim flash of light, and Seteth felt the almost-forgotten sensation of a binding oath taking hold. _Oh, flames,_ he cursed, _what have I gotten myself into?_

Unaware of Seteth’s sudden concern, Alva gestured for him to sit down. “Make yourself comfortable,” she said, “this is a bit of a long story.”

And as Seteth lowered himself to the ground, bracing himself against a tree, he also braced himself for bad news.

“Our part in this story begins ten years ago, when a group of nobles in Adrestia performed a form of coup, reducing the Emperor to a powerless figurehead,” began Alva. “They did this at the behest of a group that wanted the freedom to experiment on the heirs of the royal family. When my father was rendered helpless, he sent a message to Garreg Mach, asking Rhea for her aid, and he was told that she would not interfere. And so, there was no one left to turn to, and we were trapped. I was born with red hair, and gray eyes,” she added, “And El was brunette, with hazel eyes. That we no longer bear them is a sign of what was made of us, against our will.”

And as the story unfolded, only Seteth’s binding oath kept him still. _Our enemies,_ he thought, _our ancient enemies, and they have been flourishing unchecked for so long. Rhea did not even_ know, _or if she did, she turned a blind eye._

“…And so while it’s true that Edelgard was the Flame Emperor, it’s also misleading, because despite her name, she really did have almost no knowledge or involvement in the events attributed to her. She had some authority over the Death Knight, but he is—perhaps less prone to obeying orders than one could wish, and he would not take any orders at all from El out of her Flame Emperor garb. When El realized he took Flayn, she had to take the chance of appearing before everyone as the flame emperor to make him release her without violence—he would cheerfully have fought and killed any of us, if he could have managed it, even me.”

“And still you chased him around that entire chamber?” asked Seteth, startled.

Alva blinked at him. “Well, of course. He’d _kidnapped an innocent girl,_ and he didn’t even _tell_ us. I was furious. Jeritza might have some issues, but that doesn’t make it acceptable.”

“You didn’t tell anyone, either,” Seteth pointed out, “about any of this.”

Alva gave Seteth a pointed look. “And what were we supposed to say? ‘Oh, I can’t tell you how I know this, but we think there’s something wrong with Monica? By the way, there’s a sketchy group out there performing human experimentation? Adrestia is currently being controlled by horrible people? My father _tried_ that last one, it didn’t _work._ We couldn’t prove any of it, or even explain how we knew, without incriminating ourselves for having cooperated with them previously, even if it wasn’t by choice. All we’d manage would be getting ourselves executed, and they’d get away with it. Jeritza could have told El or I that he’d been ordered to kidnap Flayn, and we were in a position to arrange a rescue without arousing suspicion—we did what we could, and seldom knew anything to tell, in the first place. Nothing concrete. We still don’t even know _why_ they took Flayn in the first place!”

Grudgingly, Seteth had to admit the force of her argument. Alva continued, “On top of which, the church was the major force behind the crest-based hereditary nobility, and a force of oppression, executing everyone who disagreed with them, Rhea in particular, and we were in a position to know it was _entirely based on lies._ Quite frankly, it didn’t seem like going from being under the thumb of the nightwalkers to being under the thumb of the church would be much of an improvement—”

Again, Seteth interrupted. “Nightwalkers?”

Alva paused, then blushed. “Ah. Right, that’s my private term for them. Among those who slither in the dark, there are some, like Kronya and Solon, who appear to be…not human? I’m not sure _what_ they are, but they seem to be some sort of parasite, able to take over ordinary humans and possess them, somehow. It might have something to do with the whole crest-stone-resurrection thing, now that I think of it,” she added, thoughtfully.

Seteth choked. “I’m sorry, the _what?_ ”

Alva hesitated. “Right, I didn’t get to that part yet. Okay, so, according to those who slither in the dark, who do know a lot about crest stones and so on, even if they’re completely awful, there’s some sort of way to use crest stones to sacrifice a human with the right crest and bring back someone else, and they figured out that Rhea was trying to use Emrys as a sacrifice to bring back the goddess. We don’t know how it works, but since it turns out Rhea already sacrificed Emrys’s mother to bind Sothis’s soul to Emrys when she was a baby—”

“Explain that last statement,” ground out Seteth.

Alva looked hesitant. “I don’t suppose you’d be willing to take it on trust?”

“If it helps,” added Claude, “I can vouch for her on that, I was there when that came out.”

Seteth frowned. “I’m willing to accept that it might be true, but I really do need to know what evidence you have to support that claim.”

After a long moment, Alva sighed. “I…am contracted with a greater spirit. When Emrys admitted she was bound to a spirit called ‘Sothis,’ and had been since infancy, I asked her to check out the binding. She says that, as far as she can tell, someone—presumably Rhea, based on her behavior—used a living sacrifice, probably Emrys’s mother, who ‘died in childbirth’, to bind some part of Sothis’s soul and power to the newborn Emrys.”

“And Sothis herself? What does she say?” 

“She’s the one who told Emrys that Rhea had bound their souls when Emrys was born, but since she evidently has no memories of anything that took place before the week before Emrys arrived at Garreg Mach, and has been unconscious due to energy drain since she gave Emrys her power to escape the void of Zaharas, she hasn’t said anything more than that.”

Seteth shut his eyes, not sure how to feel about that. “And the Holy Tomb?”

Alva explained about the events in the Holy Tomb. Evidently, Rhea’s story had been less false than he’d expected. When she finished, Seteth felt every one of his many, many years. He tried to imagine what he would have done, if he had been called down to the Holy Tomb and presented with evidence of Rhea’s crimes. And now, he thought, he had to decide what he would do, if he should share his own secret knowledge, if he would continue to pretend he was merely Seteth, brother of Flayn, just a human who bore the crest of Cichol. If the Agarthans had indeed kidnapped Flayn, they must have known—or at least suspected—the truth of their identities, but…

_Would it even help?_ Seteth wondered, _since I cannot transform myself?_ He could not overpower Rhea, not if she could still transform. Suddenly, he had a whole new appreciation for the position in which Alva and Edelgard had found themselves, knowing, but being unable to say anything, not without revealing secrets too dangerous to be told. “I’m afraid there are too many people who are loyal to Rhea herself, rather than the church, for it to be possible to denounce her. She will simply deny any accusations, and she will be believed.”

“Yeah, we figured that out,” said Claude, dryly. “Hence the ‘attack the Monastery’ plan.”

Seteth frowned, suddenly struck by an odd thought. “But then, how do you plan to take her down, if she transforms again?”

Alva grimaced. “We’re really, really hoping it won’t come to that, that she’ll leave rather than reveal herself. Hubert tells me that Solon’s people have a plan, and they say we should leave her to them if it comes to it, which probably means demonic beasts, but it’s not like we have any better ideas, and we’re not exactly in a position to stop them.”

Seteth could see her point, but at the same time, the idea of letting the Agarthans get their hands on Rhea—even after all the awful things she’d done—didn’t sit well with him. He grimaced. “I…might be able to come up with an alternative, if it comes to that. But you’ll have to promise to help me keep them out of the hands of the A—those who slither in the dark, as you call them. Rhea as well; for all her sins, I should hate to see what they could do with the immaculate one in their clutches. And I’ll need to tell them some of what you told me—in confidence, I promise. ”

“Point taken. Well, if you can find us someone capable of taking down the immaculate one, and are willing to vouch for them not betraying us, you can tell them, in confidence. No one else, mind. If they’re willing to help, we’ll do our best to protect them—we’re already keeping them away from our teacher, and doing our best to prevent them finding out about my devil.”

Seteth blinked. “Your devil?”

Alva rose, offering Seteth a hand up. “The spirit I’m contracted with, I call her my devil. As in, ‘making a deal with the devil,’ you know?”

Seteth snorted faintly, but accepted the hand up. “And your spirit is fine with that?”

The smile Alva flashed at him was full of mischief and wickedness. “What do you think?”

“I think,” said Seteth dryly, “that you are a menace, young woman.”

“Why thank you,” replied Alva, “I appreciate the compliment.”

And with that, she and Claude bade Seteth a cheerful farewell.

That night, Seteth packed a small bag, including all the letters he’d written to Flayn since he had last seen her, and set out to call upon Indech.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I debated for quite a while how to handle Seteth. I love the initial argument with Rhea, where she's basically hoist by her own petard, because she's been telling Seteth so many lies and half-truths that he no longer believes _anything that comes out of her mouth_ , since it makes no sense. (Meanwhile, Rhea's house of cards starts to fall apart entirely. I'd almost feel bad for her, except she absolutely deserves everything coming to her.) 
> 
> I considered having just Claude be the one to tell Seteth everything, but I figured a) Seteth would really prefer a firsthand account, and b) No one is going to be willing to tell Seteth everything he really deserves to know without Alva's ability to bind him to silence. So, Alva. 
> 
> I really hadn't planned to drag Indech back into this, but I was sitting there, trying to figure out what Seteth would do in this situation, because really what options does he have to take down The Immaculate One? And then I thought: Indech. 
> 
> (Incidentally, his wyvern is named Leofstan because it means 'beloved stone,' and apparently Seteth's voice actor at one point said that Seteth would have named his wyvern 'Pebbles,' but them immediately would have tried to hide this fact. And that was the closest I could get.)


	17. The Battle of Garreg Mach

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Edelgard attacks Garreg Mach, and Neith gets to give Rhea a piece of her mind. (I know at least some of you were really looking forward to that.)

The day before the assault on Garreg Mach, Alva pulled her sister aside. Edelgard gave her an enquiring look, stiffening when she saw the unusually sober look on her face. “El, there’s something I need to tell you,” she said, softly.

“What is it? Is something wrong?” Asked Edelgard, alarmed.

“Not precisely, but…” Alva took a deep breath, then admitted, “…I’m not going to be able to join you on the battlefield tomorrow.”

“ _What?_ What’s happened?”

“El, I—remember how I promised my devil she could have a word with Rhea, in exchange for helping Emrys?”

Edelgard blinked. “Yes, but what—”

“El, we go into battle tomorrow. Depending on what happens, there might not be another opportunity.”

Edelgard just looked even more confused. “Why does that mean you can’t be on the battlefield? I would have thought that meant you’d have to be?”

Alva sighed. “Because Neith is going to be on the battlefield in my place.”

Edelgard stared. Faintly, she said,“…come again?”

“I’m going to have to invoke Neith. If I do it right, she can wander a good distance from the summoning circle, and even if she isn’t solid, she’ll have access to enough of her powers to be a pretty impressive force—and nothing will be able to hit her. But I’ll be vulnerable; I can’t sustain an invocation of that type and remain mobile. I’ll be trapped in the circle, and probably fairly helpless. So _I_ can’t be on the battlefield.”

Edelgard didn’t like the idea of this at all. “So where will you be? Everywhere around the monastery is just exposed rock, there’s nowhere safe for you to perform the invocation?”

“I’ll be _inside_ the monastery. I was thinking one of the student dorm rooms, one of those we vacated. That way, I’ll be close enough to pull this off without running the risk of discovery.”

Edelgard didn’t look convinced. “But I thought we were trying to keep her secret? And last time you invoked her, you said—”

“I know what I said, and trust me, I’m not looking forward to how drained I’ll be after doing this, but I don’t see a better option. Neith won’t mention me, and a random angry spirit showing up on the battlefield to berate Rhea for her terrible life choices sounds like a fantastic way to keep her busy, as far as I’m concerned.”

“And when people ask me where you are?”

Alva grimaced. “That’s trickier. I was hoping you or Hubert could come up with a plausible answer to that one?”

* * *

As Alva made her way cautiously down the secret passage to the monastery, she concentrated as hard as she could on picturing large, open fields, and not hyperventilating due to the small, enclosed space of the passage. _I am not trapped,_ she reminded herself firmly.

When she finally reached the hidden door that opened into the monastery, she was wound tight as a lute string, but she forced herself to wait for an endless minute, listening for anyone who might be on the other side of the door. _Nothing._ She let out a slow, shaky exhale, closed the shutter on her dark lantern, and carefully, silently opened the door, slipping into the open space behind the sauna. 

Carefully, she slipped around behind the sauna building and down the stairs, ducking quickly into the shadows of a pile of boxes as she made her way to the first-floor dormitories. _Please be empty,_ she prayed, as she approached the end room that had belonged to Professor Emrys. _I really don’t want to have to try to try to find another space I can use without getting caught._

Mercifully, it was. As she slipped inside, careful to shut and lock the door behind her, Alva let out a shaky breath. Happily, the floor was mostly clear, though it was going to be a bit tight. _Don’t think about that,_ she reminded herself, _just get the circle drawn._ And then, with luck, she’d be able to get a few hours’ sleep, so she would be rested before she had to activate it.

Alva carefully opened up her dark lantern, thanking providence that the windows were all facing outwards, where no one was likely to see any glow that might be visible through them. 

In the light of the lantern, Alva saw her first real check: the large rug that covered the floor was lying underneath both the bed on the one side, and the desk and dresser opposite, and she couldn’t move it to expose the wooden floor boards without first moving the furniture. _Blast,_ she thought, _I forgot about that._ She couldn’t draw the circle of invocation on the rug, the preexisting pattern would interfere with her markings, even if she could trace it on the thickly-woven material, which was unlikely. She eyed the desk and the dresser dubiously, wondering if she could move them without making enough noise to alert someone to her presence. _Probably not,_ she decided grudgingly. 

Even if she did, actually, the wooden floor wouldn’t work as well as the stone flags of Claude’s stillroom. But trying to get all the way across the Monastery without getting caught would be exceedingly risky: she’d leave that as a last resort. Frowning thoughtfully, she cast her eyes about the room, looking for something she could use, and her gaze fell on the bed. _Plain white sheets,_ she noticed, and paused. She couldn’t use chalk on them, of course, but if there was ink in the desk…

There was. And, while the quill wasn’t a perfect implement for writing on fabric, especially without a good firm surface underneath, it was good enough that she could, with care, trace out her ritual markings. It took hours, especially since she had to be so very, very careful, since she would only have one shot at this, and couldn’t risk making any errors in ink, but she managed it, working carefully from the center outwards, so as to avoid smudging her work. Finally, she was done, and just in time, as the first pre-dawn light was just starting to show over the horizon. _So much for getting some sleep,_ Alva thought wryly. Though, as the battle wasn’t supposed to start until full light, a couple of hours after sunrise, she could probably afford to rest a little until then. And it would give the ink a chance to dry, before she had to kneel in the center of it to activate it. _I’ll just…shut my eyes for a bit,_ decided Alva, yawning. _Just for a little while._

A few hours later, Alva was woken up by the sound of a trumpet blast, and, cursing quietly, hurriedly moved to the center of the sheet laid across the floor. _At least the ink’s dry,_ she reflected, as she pulled out her tiny silver knife and pricked her thumb with it, tracing the binding sigil in the center. Finished, she took a deep breath, and whispered, “by right of the covenant that binds us, Neith, I call to thee.”

* * *

As Edelgard watched her classmates prepare for their assault on Garreg Mach, she felt the absence of her sister keenly. For her to be out of her reach, with no way of knowing if she had been captured, or even killed, at this moment, was agonizing. And yet, part of her was glad that she would not be on this battlefield: she had known, intellectually, that by her orders, by her decisions, she was condemning hundreds of people—soldiers and civilians both—to death, that by declaring war she had put into motion something terrible, was sending people to their deaths, but somehow it hadn’t really sunk in properly until she stood before the massed ranks of her army, surrounded by her classmates, looking out at the faces of so many people prepared to fight, to kill, and perhaps to die, at her command.

And still, she could not bring herself to regret her decision. _There was no other way,_ she reminded herself. _And at least this way, those who die will not have died in vain. Their sacrifice will be honored, and will help pave the way for a better world._

And so, Edelgard stepped forward, and gave the command.

* * *

Standing off to one side, Dorothea took a deep breath, exhaling slowly through her nose, and ran through some of the warm-up vocal exercises that she’d learned as an opera singer. When she’d approached Alva, the day after she’d sent Dimitri away with little more than a song, and asked if Alva could teach her to do the same, Alva hadn’t been sure. She’d done her best, though, and after a certain amount of trial and error, Dorothea had gotten the hang of something that was, if perhaps not quite as dramatic as Alva’s singing, certainly quite effective as an augmentation to her battlefield rejuvenation dance.

 _Take a tiny thread of faith magic,_ Alva had said, _and wrap it around your voice box, letting it resonate in your vocal chords. Feel it, and really_ believe _that it is part of your song, weave it into the melody, like adding the force to let your song fill the opera house. Don’t go for anything complicated, just focus on reinforcing your song, and reaching out to everyone who hears it._

And after Edie’s speech, Dorothea knew exactly what song she was going to use.

So, as Edelgard gave the command to attack, Dorothea focused as hard as she could on pouring that little bit of something extra, all the force of her conviction, into her voice, and she started to sing.

_“Do you hear the people sing,_   
_Singing the song of angry men?_   
_It is the music of the people_   
_Who will not be slaves again!”_

* * *

In the vanguard, Petra reared up, eyes wide. She had realized that Alva was a soul-singer the night after the battle of the Eagle and the Lion, when she felt the power of shared joy and camaraderie behind her voice in the dining hall, but she had not realized that _Dorothea_ also had the gift! From what Alva had said when she’d asked her about it, she’d thought it was not a known thing, practically unheard of in this strange place, but there was no mistaking the strength of this, the force of it. Why had no one said? Were they ashamed of this, somehow? Was it perhaps kept secret to avoid enemies coming after them, for their power? Perhaps that was it, but in that case, why had they not tried to hide Dorothea’s ability to reinvigorate allies by her dancing?

But these were questions for a later time, and for the moment, Petra simply embraced the extra rush of strength the song provided, and swore that she would keep an even closer eye on Dorothea in this battle, that she would be on guard for any enemies that sought to target one with such a rare talent.

Beside her, Ferdinand let out a joyous laugh, smiling fiercely, and joined in the song.

* * *

When Ferdinand’s voice joined Dorothea’s, Hubert shook his head, and glanced over at Professor Emrys, where she advanced beside Lady Edelgard. “You knew of this?” He asked, though he could read the answer in her expression, satisfied but unsurprised.

“Dorothea told me she’d been working on it, as an extension of her dancing,” Emrys admitted, looking amused. “She’s made faster progress than I expected, however.”

And then there was no more time for talking, as they reached the first rank of church soldiers, and Hubert focused on channeling the extra energy the song provided into his spellcasting, blasting an Armored Knight who was making for Lady Edelgard.

* * *

As they made their way towards the raised drawbridge blocking access to the steps leading up to the outer wall of Garreg Mach, Edelgard noticed that their enemies were becoming increasingly disorganized—distracted, or perhaps uncertain. 

The reason for their distraction became evident once the drawbridge came down, giving a clear view up the stairs, to where the semitransparent form of Neith, resplendent in ornate red robes that made her look every bit as grand as the painting of the Goddess in the Cathedral, hovered beside Rhea, berating her in a voice that carried all the way to where Edelgard and Emrys stood at the foot of the steps.

Edelgard felt the fist around her heart ease, and she nearly laughed with relief. _She made it. Alva made it safely._

At the entrance to the Monastery, Rhea screamed something incoherent and tried to stab Neith with her sword, only for the blade to pass straight through her. Undisturbed, Neith continued her harangue.

“Yes, go ahead, try to stab the insubstantial spirit, that’s a great way to inspire confidence in your followers. I’m very impressed, you’ve managed to fool them all into thinking you’re this great and powerful benevolent leader, all the while you sacrifice _innocents and children_ in incompetent attempts at necromancy. You didn’t even think to consider that sacrificing Sitri under _false pretenses_ would influence the binding, oh no, you told her it was the only way to save her child, and then you killed her and tried to _sacrifice the child to use as a vessel for a partial spirit,_ not even the whole spirit, from what I saw there must have been I don’t know how many failed attempts, each of which damaged the soul even more, breaking off pieces, for all I know it wasn’t whole to start with, just a fragmental tether—oh, don’t bother denying it, I know what I saw! That bond was positively parasitic, feeding on the poor infant, it was an abomination—”

Again, Rhea screamed incoherently, and this time she threw a blast of light magic at Neith, who just raised an eyebrow as it passed right through her and hit the wall behind her. “You already _tried_ that one, you idiotic woman, what made you think it was going to work this time? Really, if that was supposed to impress me, you have a long way to go—”

At that, Catherine and Cyril, who had just come running down the steps from the Monastery proper, leading a group of reinforcements, started yelling as well. Catherine even slashed at Neith with Thunderbrand, only for it, too, to pass straight through the intangible spirit.

Neith continued her rant, totally unimpressed, as all the other reinforcements just kind of milled around in distracted confusion.

“Ah, more blind followers of the crazy incompetent necromancer! Congratulations, I suppose, on managing to convince so many people that you’re some sort of paragon of virtue, but really I can’t believe you thought you’d get away with this, honestly.”

Edelgard debated letting this go on, but she rather thought that if Rhea got any more enraged, she would probably transform into the immaculate one, and she’d really rather not risk that. So, clearing her throat, she yelled, “ _Charge!”_ and let the way up the stairs toward Rhea. 

* * *

Seteth, Indech and Flayn could hear the fighting long before they came into sight of the Monastery, though the roars of the Immaculate One were absent. Indech carried his fog with him, to avoid being seen, and that prevented them from getting a good look at the battlefield themselves. Finally, they reached the outer edge of the fortifications surrounding the main entrance to Garreg Mach, and Seteth flew on ahead, Flayn a warm weight against his back, to see if Indech would be needed.

As he flew overhead, he spotted most of the students engaged in battle with various church soldiers, while Rhea tried to simultaneously fight off both Edelgard and Emrys, occasionally screaming at—some sort of spirit?

Seteth blinked, but no, that was definitely some sort of spirit, hovering next to Rhea, ranting about improper bindings and incompetent attempts at necromancy, only pausing to throw a ball of light magic at anyone who got too close to actually landing a serious hit on a student, though as he watched she turned her attention to Catherine and Cyril, who were suddenly recipients of a very angry lecture about blindly following people who really did not deserve their loyalty, and the importance of actually _thinking for oneself._

Behind Seteth, Indech’s voice rumbled in amusement, “Well, it would seem that the spirit you mentioned has some strong thoughts about this.”

Leonie, who had been standing behind the other students taking potshots at any church soldiers that came into range, whirled, raising her bow to point at the source of the new voice. When she saw the enormous form of Indech, she squeaked. “Um! Hello, Mister Giant Magic Talking Beast! Are you friendly?”

“I can be,” replied Indech, now even more amused.

By now, Rhea had noticed the new arrivals. “Seteth! You came! You brought— _Indech?_ ”

Near Leonie, Claude choked. _Indech?_ This giant turtle was _Indech? Indech_ was Seteth’s answer to the Immaculate One?

“Hello, sister,” rumbled Indech, in a significantly less friendly tone than he had been using. “I have heard some rather unpleasant stories about what you’ve been up to, and came to see what you had to say for yourself.”

Rhea snarled. “Whatever Seteth told you, it’s a lie! I have done nothing wrong!”

Beside her, Neith snorted. “If you really believe that, you’re crazier than I thought. The binding you set upon that child—”

At that, Rhea finally reached the end of her tether. She whirled to face Neith, roaring in fury, and scales rushed across her face as she transformed into the Immaculate One.

All the humans scattered, leaving an unimpressed Neith standing before the enormous white dragon, looking tiny in the face of the sheer bulk of the Immaculate One. Rhea opened her mouth and released a blast of power that, passing right through Neith, hit the wall behind her and shattered it, sending fragments of stone flying in all directions.

Indech stepped forward, mindful not to step on the tiny humans at his feet. “Cease this madness, sister. You have lost yourself.”

Roaring again, Rhea turned, and sent another blast of power at Indech. In response, Indech hit her with an enormous blast of water, throwing her back against the monastery wall. She screamed in impotent fury, and all the remaining church soldiers (including Catherine and Cyril) fell back, retreating into the Monastery, away from the battling titans at the Monastery gates. Finally, after exchanging several more blows with Indech, Rhea seemed to realize that she was not going to win this fight, and she launched herself skyward, winging her way towards the Red Canyon, screaming defiance behind her.

* * *

Meanwhile, in the study of Castle Fraldarius, Duke Rodrigue was looking at the hunched body of his prince, his best friend’s son, as he poured out everything that had happened to him, all his confused thoughts and feelings, a disjointed rush of confused emotion. He listened as Dimitri tried to find words to explain that he did not know what to do, did not know how to be a good king, did not want to fight Edelgard—did not want to fight anyone—but could not stand by and let there be a war, either.

Finally, the flow ceased, leaving Dimitri sobbing into his hands, and Duke Rodrigue reached out and drew him into his arms. “I think,” said Rodrigue, slowly, “that I have done you a disservice. All these years, I did not want you to feel forced to mold yourself in your father’s image, and thus I have not told you a great deal about what he was like, as a king. The things he felt were the most important. I forgot, perhaps, that had he lived, he would have guided you himself.”

“My father?” whispered Dimitri, in a voice rough from sobbing.

“Your father, King Lambert,” affirmed Rodrigue. “Would you like to hear about him?”

Dimitri nodded, shakily.

So, in a soothing, gentle voice, Rodrigue told Dimitri about his father. About his reforms, and his policies, and his radical ideas, which had set so many of the nobles against him, as he endeavored to take power away from the nobility and give it to his people. About how he had been fearless in the face of threats, determined to do the right thing, no matter what.

In the end, he finished by saying, “All that stopped, of course, when he died—even if your uncle had been interested in continuing Lambert’s efforts, as regent, he would not have been able to do so. I’ve always suspected that part of the reason he is so ineffectual is that he feared that if he tried to make any real impact, the nobles would turn on him, as well—his weakness gives them power.”

Dimitri thought about that. Finally, he asked, tentatively, “Do you think—do you think I should try to do as he did? Would he have wanted that?”

“I think,” said Rodrigue, very seriously, “That he would have wanted you to live. When he started his efforts at reform, he was a strong, well-established king—and they still killed him for it. I think he would rather see you live, than follow in his footsteps.”

Dimitri hesitated. “But you—you think he was a good king?”

“One of the best,” answered Rodrigue, firmly, adding, "but there is more than one way to be a good king."

“’if a mother dies saving her child,’” whispered Dimitri, and trailed off into an inaudible murmur.

Rodrigue blinked. “Come again?”

Dimitri shook his head slightly, and repeated himself in a firmer voice. “I said, ‘if a mother dies saving her child, then honor her by loving the child.’ It’s something someone said to me, a few months ago. About not letting the sacrifices of those who died be in vain.”

Rodrigue thought about his son and his best friend, both of whom had died defending this young man, and felt a lump rise in his throat. “I think,” he said softly, “that whoever said that was rather wise.”

“Have you ever seen an opera about a mad knight named von Quijote?” asked Dimitri, suddenly.

Rodrigue no longer had any idea what was going through his prince’s head. “No, I can’t say I have, I was never one for the opera, personally.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this chapter was an adventure to write. I suck at fight scenes, and battle scenes are even worse, and while most of the action so far has been related in the style of someone recounting things after, very minimalist, this seemed to need a different approach. I actually loaded up the To War map (I had to use a GD run, I didn't have a CF run anywhere near that chapter) and went into first person view and scrolled all around to try to get the hang of the landscape, so as to figure out how to get it to work. Did you guys realize there's an actual drawbridge on that map? Because I didn't! There's even a little bitty moat! (I also went and watched someone play through Indech's paralogue to see Indech's attacks, because I wanted to match how he fights in-game.) I also spent a stupid amount of time running around Garreg Mach, trying to decide where Alva's secret passage came out, and where she was going to do her summoning--and then, once I'd settled on Emrys's room, I saw the rug! So I shared Alva's chagrin. (I actually originally planned to have her use Claude's secret stillroom, but then I remembered I'd established that it was near the infirmary, and Alva trying to sneak around that area of the monastery seemed a terrible idea.) 
> 
> Incidentally, if anyone is wondering, a dark lantern is a lantern with little shutters, so you can block the light without extinguishing it, or only let it out in a specific direction--very useful for sneaking around! 
> 
> I hope everyone enjoyed Dot getting Magic Singing Abilities! Not quite as dramatically as Alva, since she's not part fae, but her personal ability is Songstress, and means she heals any adjacent units at the start of the turn for 10% of their total HP, presumably by singing, so I figured I would have Alva teach her to use that as a sort of buff--anyway, she's the dancer, so she can already empower other units by dancing, and singing is a natural extension of that. I spent quite a while trying to decide what song she would use, but in the end, _Do you hear the people sing_ seemed the most appropriate song I could think of, though the in-universe equivalent of _Les Miserables_ is an opera about the Crescent Moon War, which was the Leicester Alliance's war of independence, rather than the french revolution. (As much as I love _The Impossible Dream_ , it wasn't appropriate for the context, or for the effect I wanted to have.) (Petra's thoughts on the Magic Singing thing are part of a headcanon I have that I haven't actually explored properly yet, but will probably come up eventually.) Ferdinand has no magic singing abilities, but he loves opera, and thus joins in.
> 
> I _finally_ decided what to do with Dimitri! It took me AGES, but I was struck by the idea that Dimitri definitely thinks his father was a good king, and everything we know about his father seems to indicate that he wasn't one to try to preserve the status quo, he was a _revolutionary_ himself--and that's one of the reasons he was killed. I seriously considered trying to make it so Dimitri could _actually talk to his father's ghost_ , so his dad could set him straight, but I couldn't find a way to justify that, even though Blaiddyd is actually a king who was famous for his necromantic powers. But then I figured I'd have him go talk to Rodrigue, instead. (also, his going to talk to his surrogate father figure explains why he wasn't at Garreg Mach.) So, to my utter astonishment, it looks like I might not have to depose him after all! 
> 
> On a different note, I have a question for everybody: It occurred to me the other day that, actually, Alva's singing in the sealed forest wasn't really necessary to save Sothis--when I wrote that, the Neith-summoning scene only had Neith show up and look at the binding, not re-stabilize it, so I had Alva sing to come up with an excuse for Sothis just being drained, not 'merging' with Emrys. But if I have Neith re-stabilize the binding, there's no real reason Alva had to provide a beacon, I can just let Sothis 'merge' with Emrys and have Neith fix it, no singing required. So I was considering going back and editing that out, because I don't want Alva to be this overpowered character and constantly fix everything by her Magic Fae Abilities, since that's a bit annoying to read. How would people feel about that? Would you object to me going back and changing that at this stage? Or would that be an improvement everyone could get behind?
> 
> (Also, this point marks the end--barring the ten pages that I mentioned a couple chapters back, and those don't come up for a while yet--of what I had written/planned, so updates are going to slow down a lot from here on out. Sorry about that.)


	18. Aftermath

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The immediate aftermath of the Battle of Garreg Mach. 
> 
> NOTE TO ANYONE WHO IS RETURNING: The changed/added section begins with "Claude wasn't the only person to have obligations outside the monastery", so you can just control+f to get there, if you just want to see the new part.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a note, I'm still interested in hearing how people feel about me editing the sealed forest Alva singing episode out, whether people would really rather I not change it or people who are fine with that? 
> 
> Also, I edited the last chapter to make it clear that Seteth brought Flayn back with him, as well as Indech.

In the chaos after Rhea departs, and the remaining inhabitants of Garreg Mach officially surrender to Edelgard’s army, it takes an hour or so for Edelgard to realize that Alva still hasn’t emerged from wherever she was hiding while she maintained the invocation. Neith vanished when Rhea left, but Alva…still hasn’t reappeared.

Edelgard remembers her sister swaying on her feet after dispelling Neith the last time she summoned her, and so she tells Hubert to go check the dorm rooms, in case Alva fell asleep immediately, to make sure she was not left vulnerable.

When he returns carrying her limp body, Edelgard is convinced for a long, terrible moment that her sister is dead. She drops what she’s holding and rushes to him, heart in her throat, only calming when Hubert’s voice cuts through her terror, saying, “Lady Alva is alive and uninjured, Your Majesty. She merely sleeps, and will not wake. I found her collapsed in the center of her ritual circle, so I expect it is merely that she overextended herself.”

So Edelgard, who is directing activities from the audience chamber, orders a cot set up in the advisory room, where Alva can rest safely under her eye, but without drawing undue attention to her weakened state. She also summons Linhardt from the infirmary to confirm that there is nothing else wrong with her, and he confirms that it is merely the worst case of backlash he’s ever seen. He asks what on earth her ‘secret mission’ was, that she had overexerted herself to this extent, and Edelgard manages to fob him off by saying that it was ‘like the time she saved Captain Jeralt’s life, but worse.’

She then returns to trying to figure out how to handle the enormous headache that was Indech. When Alva had told her that Seteth thought he might be able to recruit someone to help them subdue the Immaculate One, she’d been dubious and wary, but pleased enough to have that kind of power on her side; when she’d said that he had warned her they’d have to keep this mysterious person away from the nightwalkers, she’d accepted that, because anyone powerful enough to subdue the immaculate one was definitely someone they would want to get their hands on, and she would not see anyone in their clutches if she could help it.

She had not, however, been prepared for an _enormous talking turtle,_ who might or might not be Indech, and called Rhea _sister._ And unlike Rhea, he appeared to be either unable or unwilling to revert to a humanoid shape, so he was just…sitting there, just outside the monastery, because he _did not fit inside._

Perhaps Seteth, who was responsible for the presence of said Giant Turtle, would have some ideas on how to handle this, because Edelgard was fairly well out of ideas. So she sends a messenger to go find Seteth and request his presence, as politely as possible.

Half an hour later, a rather uncomfortable-looking Seteth is standing in the entrance of the room. Edelgard waves him to one of the benches they’d moved out of the advisory room, to make room for Alva’s bed, saying “Sit down, Seteth, I’m not going to attack you.”

Seteth sits down. “I would like to apologize, on the behalf of the church,” he says, before Edelgard can continue. “Alva…told me some of what was done to you, and how the church stood by and did nothing, even when petitioned for aid. At the time, all I knew was that there was a certain amount of political unrest, and when Rhea said that it would be unwise to involve the church in a purely secular affair, I accepted her decision without question.”

Edelgard blinked at him. “…I did not realize that you were even here, ten years ago. How much older than Flayn are you, that you were old enough then to be in a position of authority?”

Seteth’s look of discomfort became acute. “…Flayn, ah, spent several years in a coma, due to magical backlash. The actual difference between our ages is thus less than the difference in the number of years we have experienced.”

Edelgard froze. “Magical backlash can result in a _coma?_ ”

Seteth frowned. “Yes? It’s rare, but not unheard of. Flayn is a talented healer, and overextended herself severely.”

“And there’s no way to treat it?”

Seteth was staring now, somewhat baffled. “Well, there are certain measures one can take to promote recovery and compensate for the lack of food and water, but otherwise, no, you just have to wait for them to wake up. Why?”

Edelgard grimaced, but admitted, “…Alva is unconscious from magical backlash, and Linhardt says it’s the worst he’s ever seen. I had assumed she’d wake up in a day or so, and then recover like last time, only perhaps more slowly. I didn’t know it could cause a coma.”

Seteth’s eyes went wide with understanding, and he said, “Oh, of course, from the invocation, I should have realized.”

Edelgard stiffened. “How do you know about that?”

Too late, Seteth realized his error. “…She told me that she was contracted with a spirit, when I asked how she knew about the binding on Emrys. I assumed, when I saw the angry spirit yelling at Rhea, that it was the same one, and since she wasn’t tangible, she must have been invoked.”

Edelgard's eyes narrowed. “You know an awful lot about spirits, for someone who works for the church,” she said, and her voice made it an accusation.

“I do,” replied Seteth, meeting her gaze squarely.

“The same way you were able to convince the giant turtle that Rhea referred to as ‘Indech’ to help us defeat the Immaculate One?”

“Yes,” agreed Seteth, softly, “and I would really rather not discuss either of those facts, if possible.”

For a long moment, neither of them spoke. Finally, Seteth cleared his throat, awkwardly, and offered, “Would you like me to look at your sister? I’m no healer, but I remember what was done for Flayn, and I might be able to tell you something more than Linhardt.”

Edelgard accepted this as the peace offering it was, and nodded. “I would appreciate that, actually.”

So Edelgard took Seteth into the advisory room, and he frowned, checking her over. “It’s definitely a coma,” he concluded, “But I can’t say much more than that. I still have the enchanted healing crystals that were used to monitor Flayn and provide sustenance while she slept, and with your permission, I would be willing to fetch them for use on Alva?”

“I would very much appreciate that,” said Edelgard, “But I actually had another reason for summoning you here, and we should probably address that before you go after them.”

“Very well. What was it you needed me for in the first place?”

“…There is an enormous magical talking turtle sitting at the gates of Garreg Mach, which I promised to protect from Those Who Slither In The Dark. It—he?—called Rhea ‘sister’, and she called him ‘Indech.’ I need to figure out what to do with him.”

Seteth once again cleared his throat, awkwardly. “Ah, yes. That.”

“I considered going and asking him what his dietary requirements and similar were, but considering the ‘protection’ element, it seemed unwise to discuss what we could do with and for him, and any requirements he might have, in public.”

Seteth suddenly felt a surge of warmth for this young woman, whose first concern when faced with Indech’s enormous bestial form was apparently _how she would keep him fed_ and _where she could put him to keep him safe._ “Thank you,” he said, finally. “I appreciate the consideration.” He cleared his throat, then continued. “He is the guardian of Lake Teutates, and on that basis, ‘Teutates’ would not be an inappropriate name for him. It would probably be best not to refer to him as ‘Indech.’ He eats fish, though not as much as one would expect of a creature his size, perhaps as much as an adult Wyvern. He would probably be most comfortable in the fishpond, though it will be a somewhat tight fit, and transporting him to it might be awkward.”

Edelgard nodded. “Thank you. If he doesn’t feel it would be too undignified, we could probably rig up some sort of transport sling for the wyverns to use, and that will also solve the difficulty of keeping Those That Slither in the Dark from having ready access to him. How long will it take you to retrieve the healing stones?”

Seteth thought about that. “Not long,” he decided, “if I take Leofstan, I can be back before sunset.” 

“Then go with my gratitude,” said Edelgard. 

Upon the point of departure, Seteth hesitated. “Given recent events,” he said, cautiously, “I’m not entirely comfortable leaving Flayn alone, even just for a few hours. She’s currently helping Manuela, in the infirmary, but…”

Edelgard was startled, and showed it. “I didn’t actually realize you brought her back with you—I thought you left her with some relation or other?”

“Ah, that was…a bit of misdirection, for added security. I have been acquainted with Teutates for quite some time, and it was in his protection that I left her.”

Understanding spread across Edelgard’s face. “Oh, of course.” That explained, she frowned, considering the problem. “As long as she stays near the infirmary, helping with the wounded, she’ll be as well protected as she could be anywhere. Provided the knights really did seal off the hidden stairway in the library, after they used it to kidnap Alva?” And hadn’t that been a kick in the teeth, though of course they should have checked for such a thing as soon as they discovered that Tomas was really Solon.

Seteth grimaced, but nodded. “Yes, and we went over the whole building with a fine toothed comb, just to make sure there weren’t any others.”

“In that case, I don’t think she’s in any real danger. But I can ask the healers not to let her out of her sight, if that would help?”

Seteth allowed that it would, in fact, make him feel better about leaving Flayn behind, and departed secure in the knowledge that she had promised to remain with the other healers until he returned.

* * *

When Claude found out that Alva had managed to overexert herself to the point of winding up in a _backlash coma,_ (which, _that was a thing, apparently_ ), he very quietly freaked out. He was only somewhat reassured by the information that apparently Seteth had some sort of magic crystals to monitor and sustain someone in that state, because apparently the reason he had them was that Flayn had at some point been in such a coma for _years_ (which explained quite a bit about Seteth’s insane overprotectiveness, actually). Even the spectacle of a whole squadron of wyvern riders working in concert to lift the giant talking turtle (whom Claude was informed was actually called Teutates, not Indech, though he wasn’t entirely sure he believed that) from the outer gates of the monastery into the fishing pond wasn’t enough to pierce his persistent gloom of worry. 

To make things worse, Claude was fully aware that he was going to have to leave soon to return to Derdriu, at least temporarily, because if he didn’t manage to control the narrative here and convince his grandfather to back Edelgard against the church, things were not going to go well. (He didn’t want to think about what he would do if his grandfather was determined to defend Rhea.) He also needed to get a message to Nader, because if Claude was going to have to split his time between Garreg Mach and Derdriu, he wanted his wyvern, damnit. He had left her in Almyra when he first came to Fódlan to avoid anyone suspecting his origins, but, he’d been on skywatch regularly here at Garreg Mach, he could now justifiably claim that he had simply bought a wyvern of his own to aid him in his travels.

Claude wasn’t the only one to have obligations outside the monastery, either; while none of the Black Eagles showed any sign of going anywhere, anytime soon (not that Claude had really expected them to), the non-Empire students were another story. Ingrid had left for Galatea before the dust had even settled, though (somewhat to Claude’s surprise) all the other Blue Lions had remained at the monastery—Ingrid had tried to convince Sylvain and Felix to go talk to their parents, as well, and it was only Mercedes’s timely intervention, pointing out that Felix and Sylvain could hardly keep up with her Pegasus, and her Pegasus could hardly carry all three of them, that prevented that suggestion being met with actual bloodshed. (Which was a pity; Claude had made a bet with Hilda about whether Felix would snap and strike Ingrid before Ingrid lost her temper and struck Sylvain for his shockingly lascivious insinuations about what people would think about her traveling with men, unchaperoned, which were his defense against Ingrid’s persistence.) Ashe had offered to accompany her, but Ingrid had admitted that if her parents found out that she’d been traveling alone with the heir apparent to house Gaspard, who had no business in the area other than escorting her home, they really would cause no end of fuss and try to insist he marry her, and that sort of drama was undesirable, just now. This led to some discussion as to whether or not Ashe should return to Lonato’s lands, which had been under the control of a church official since Lonato’s death, the conclusion of which was that Yuri offered to send one of his people to go check out the current situation in Gaspard, to determine how they would feel about the return of Ashe, since he had been with the army that killed Lonato, whom they had loved. (Also, to make sure that neither Ashe’s people nor Ashe’s siblings were being ill-treated.) Yuri also, somewhat grudgingly, extended a similar offer to Annette, who had been giving Felix kitten fits by insisting, inspired by Ingrid, that she had to go inform her uncle of what was going on—though in Annette’s case, the offer was to carry a message to her uncle, provided her father wasn’t already in residence. (Claude was 90% certain that Gustave/Gilbert had probably retreated to the Red Canyon, like Catherine, but he supposed it was possible that even his faith had been shaken by Rhea’s transformation.)

Claude made a mental note that he really, really needed to recruit Yuri. Anyone with an established network on the scale he evidently operated was a resource Claude wanted on his side, badly.

Among the Golden Deer, Claude was confident that Leonie wasn’t going anywhere—it would take a team of elephants to drag her away from Jeralt’s side—and since Ignatz had been assigned to preserving the artwork that had been damaged or exposed in the battle of Garreg Mach, with Raphael helping with the heavy lifting, Claude was fairly certain they’d not be leaving any time soon. Lysithea wasn’t about to leave Edelgard and Alva, not since she’d gotten a vague confirmation of her suspicions about what had been done to them (and Alva had told her that she was determined to find a way to undo it), though she had requested Yuri’s help getting a message to her parents. Marianne had apparently taken one look at the _enormous talking turtle_ and decided that he was the best thing ever, (Hilda reported that she’d said, when asked, something about how he proved that something monstrous didn’t have to be a monster, which raised some worrying questions) and he had apparently decided he liked this strange, quiet young woman, so Marianne was apparently in charge of making sure ‘Teutates’ had everything he needed, and she seemed rather more at home in her own skin than he’d ever seen her, which was a marked improvement. Lorenz had left fairly well as soon as had been decent, probably trying to steal a march on Claude, and Claude had to admit he was a little nervous about that, it definitely added an element of urgency to his need to return to Derdriu and talk to his grandfather, because what Lorenz and Count Gloucester could get up to without someone else to be the voice of reason and explain what was really going on didn’t bear thinking about, but— _Alva._

A couple of days into the reconstruction efforts, Claude grabbed Hilda on her way out of the mess hall, pulling her aside so they could talk in something like privacy. “I need a favor,” he said, without bothering with a preamble. Hilda raised an amused eyebrow, and said, dryly, “I’m listening.”

Claude took a deep breath. “I know you were planning to leave for your family’s lands, soon, but I have to head to Derdriu, because _Lorenz,_ and also diplomacy, and I need someone to stay behind that I can trust to keep me updated on what’s going on in here.”

“You mean to make sure nothing happens to your imperial girlfriend and inform you as soon as she shows signs of waking up,” Hilda corrected, amused. “That sounds an awful lot of work for someone like me. Anyway, why me?”

Claude winced. “First of all, she is _not_ my girlfriend, okay? And secondly, that might be part of it, but it’s not everything—things are going to be happening very quickly, and Garreg Mach is going to be the center of a lot of it, and I _need to be aware_ of any significant developments. As for why you—you’re my friend, and everyone knows it, and you already write to your brother regularly, no one will think anything of it, particularly, if you start writing me letters, too.”

Hilda frowned at him, thoughtfully. “You really mean it, don’t you? This is important—and not just because of your infatuation with Alva.”

Claude groaned. “Why do people keep _saying_ that? She’s my friend! What is it that makes everyone think I’m in love with Alva?”

Hilda snorted. “For one thing, because you keep _denying_ it—you do know that people call me your girlfriend, right? That’s why Alva is your _imperial_ girlfriend. _I_ might know that you deny it because of the political and diplomatic mess that implying you’re dating a Hresvelg princess would create, but as far as everyone else is concerned, you brush it off when anyone suggests you’re interested in me, but get all flustered when they imply you’re dating _her._ ”

Claude hesitated. After a moment, he made a face, admitting, “point taken. I don’t suppose you’d be willing to pretend the letters you’re sending me are part of some sort of courtship, to nip that in the bud?”

Hilda gave him a look so flat, it could have been used to measure angles. “That brings me to my next point, which is the reason I _know_ you’re in love with her: when she’s around, you laugh, and I mean, you _really_ laugh. Normally, when you laugh and/or smile, it’s insincere—I can tell. Your real smile comes out infrequently—I’ve gotten it a couple times, and so has Professor Eisner, but Alva makes you smile _consistently,_ and she’s the only person I’ve ever seen make you truly, honestly laugh, without worrying about who’s watching. For that matter,” she added, pointedly, “She’s also the only person you consistently go out of your way to make happy.”

Claude felt very, very exposed. He wanted to deny it, but…

Hilda just looked at him. “So, no, I will not pretend to be in love with you. I might be persuaded, however, to drop a word in a few ears that talk about you being involved with Alva puts you in a precarious position, and speculate on what might happen if Edelgard or Hubert got wind of your attachment.”

“My _supposed_ attachment,” added Claude, firmly.

Hilda rolled her eyes. “Yes, yes, fine, your entirely imaginary attachment.”

“So you’ll do it?” said Claude, hopefully.

He could see the moment Hilda gave in. “Yes, fine. I suppose I can postpone putting up with my brother for a bit longer. But you owe me, Claude von Riegan!”

Claude smiled, feeling the tension leave his shoulders. “You are a wonder and a joy forever,” he told her, firmly.

“I know,” Hilda agreed, looking smug.

So, Claude left for Derdriu, secure in the knowledge that Hilda would keep him informed on the situation at Garreg Mach. (It was just as well that he left when he did, too, because he arrived only just in time to defuse the mess that Lorenz and his father had managed to make, working together, and of course they’d managed to put his grandfather’s back up, so that he wasn’t favorably disposed towards any suggestions that they might ally themselves with the empire, and ugh. Lorenz was completely incapable of _not_ making more work for Claude, somehow.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this is kind of short? Ish? Anyway, it cuts off in a weird place, but I wanted to post what I have to keep moving forward. (I'm trying to decide how to handle things from here.) There definitely isn't a timeskip, because Emrys is not vanishing for 5 years here, but I still have to decide if this Edelgard is going to follow canon!Edelgard's plan of stomping Rhea's group out first then going after TWSITD, or if she's going to change gears here and go after TWSITD, especially considering, y'know, she has 3/4 saints currently on her side (though she doesn't know this.) 
> 
> Other interesting things that I have to figure out how to handle: Seteth meets Jeritza again, for the first time since Flayn was rescued! Sothis wakes up! How to handle the fact that I don't actually know Rhea's real name! (Apparently Seiros is also a pseudonym, on the VW route she says that after the red canyon thing she became obsessed with revenge, and "called [herself] Seiros"--which makes sense, because Seiros is greek, like Sothis, where all the other Nabateans have names from Celtic mythology.) What to do about Dimitri (in detail)! etc etc etc. 
> 
> Unrelated thing: sorry for formatting inconsistencies, for some reason my beginning-of-paragraph indents don't always carry over? So sometimes I wind up adding extra lines between paragraphs when I'm writing, just to make sure there's a clear space between paragraphs at all after I copy-paste things here, and it's a mess. Sorry about that.
> 
> Notes pertaining to the update: Hilda confuses me. Like, as a character, she makes sense, but she's clearly got some motivations going on that I don't get. The axe thing, for one--it would be a lot easier for her to be all 'oh I am a dainty woman' if she didn't go in for AXES as her main weapon? And why does she join the war? why is she loyal to Claude? I can't make her out. (that's part of why she hasn't shown up much so far.) I think I've decided how I want to run with her, for this, so you'll probably see more of her from here on out.


	19. Outset of a Power Struggle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alva wakes up! Claude returns! Cornelia declares that Dimitri murdered his uncle!

Alva awoke to find herself alone, surrounded by glowing stones, on a bed in the advisory room. She took mental stock of her current state: she was wearing a nightgown, rather than the sensible tunic and loose pants she’d worn to sneak into the monastery, she felt extremely well-rested, if a little shaky, despite the energy she’d poured into that invocation, and she could feel Neith, steady and remarkably strong, given the amount of energy _she’d_ expended, on the other end of their link. _Neith?_ She sent the thought along the link, tentative, and received a rush of surprised pleasure in return. _Nonverbal, then,_ she thought, with a pang. It would have been nice to be able to hold actual conversations with Neith without invoking her, but that she was aware at all was an unexpected blessing. _And I’m mostly recovered,_ she thought, giving the glowing spheres a contemplative look. _Given how much power that invocation took, that probably means it’s been at least a week since the battle._ She’d watched most of the battle through Neith’s eyes, and she remembered weaving a touch of her own fae magic into Neith’s voice, making it carry a little bit of extra conviction, to further unnerve and unsettle any loyal church soldiers who heard it. _That might have been a mistake,_ she reflected, _if it meant I overexerted myself to the point of remaining unconscious for a week._

Alva made a mental note to thank whatever kind person had left a pitcher of water and a glass by her bedside, as she quenched her thirst by drinking the better part of the entire pitcher of water. _Now for food,_ she decided. _I’m so hungry, I might even be able to out-eat Raphael._

She got to her feet, found that she was remarkably steady, with none of the faintness she would have expected after going at least a week without food. _Huh,_ she thought. _I wonder if that’s a fae thing?_

Whatever it was, she was glad of it, especially since she found no one in the audience chamber, though there was definite evidence that someone had been working there recently, and had left in a hurry—which was very odd. Alva couldn’t imagine Edelgard leaving her unguarded when she was unconscious and vulnerable, and yet here she was, alone, with the doors to the audience chamber left standing open.

_Okaaaay…_ There were no signs of violence, anyway, just of a hasty departure, and Alva was baffled. _Some sort of emergency, maybe?_ In that case, maybe it would be better not to draw attention to herself just yet. Cautiously, she made her way to the doorway, relaxing somewhat when faced with the familiar figure of Ladislava, standing guard by the entrance to the stairwell, exclaiming in relief.

Ladislava, hearing her voice, jumped and whirled, lowering her spear point in mortification when she realized who had startled her. “Lady Alva! My apologies, the healers didn’t expect you to wake for a few more days, at least!”

That…was a bit interesting, but Alva decided to let it be, at least for now. “Well, apparently they were wrong, as I am very much awake and also very hungry. Where is everyone?”

Ladislava cringed. “Ah, there was…a great commotion, and yelling, and fighting, and at first we thought we were under attack, but then Fleche came to fetch Her Majesty and she said that Seteth had lost his mind and was attacking Jeritza in the courtyard, and everyone rushed out to try to stop it, but Her Majesty told me to stay at my post, so I did, and the shouting stopped a few minutes ago, but I haven’t heard anything since—”

Alva groaned. _Who thought having Seteth and Jeritza in the same building would be a good idea?_ “Alright, I’ll go see what’s going on.”

Ladislava looked beside herself. “But my Lady, you can’t!”

Alva looked exasperated. “With all due respect, I think you’ll find I can, actually. For one thing, I’m ravenous, and there’s no one here to send for food, so I’ll have to go myself, since—as El quite rightly decided—you can hardly leave your post.”

Without giving Ladislava a chance to respond, Alva darted past her and started down the stairs, suppressing her anxiety with the ease of long practice. There was no one at the bottom of the stairs, which was not terribly surprising, but as she made her way into the open air, she found she could make out the sounds of a crowd arguing about something, and she followed it until she found the source, a tight cluster of people all jostling and shushing each other, trying to hear what was going on in the center.

Alva considered the scene. Deciding not to try to convince this crowd to let her through, she hiked up her nightdress, securing the bundle of fabric well above her knees, and climbed a nearby tree. Once she was high enough to have a reasonable view over the heads of the onlookers, she turned, and, peering through the leaves, discovered that (mercifully) the situation had not devolved into bloodshed, but that Seteth was still red with fury, ignoring Edelgard, who appeared to be trying to argue with him, in favor of glaring at an unmasked Jeritza and holding his spear like he would really rather be using it, but prevented from actually doing so by the fact that Mercedes had thrown her arms around Jeritza’s neck and was sobbing incoherently. Jeritza, meanwhile, looked rather like he didn’t know what to do with himself and was acutely uncomfortable with the whole situation.

Alva wasn’t sure what to make of that, but she decided to intervene while the situation was still moderately peaceful. So she straightened as best she could, undid the knot holding up her skirt so that her legs were once more mostly covered, and let out a piercing whistle.

Everyone looked up at that, even Seteth, and Edelgard’s expression when she saw her sister halfway up a tree in her nightdress was a study in joyful consternation. Abandoning her argument with Seteth, she tried to rush towards her, but was stymied by the crowd of onlookers. Seteth himself exclaimed in astonishment and lowered his spear, and then a large portion of the crowd was gathered around the tree that contained Alva, rather than the Seteth-and-Jeritza drama.

There was quite a lot of shouting. Finally, all the uninvolved parties were sent about their business, someone fetched Alva an enormous meal (to her gratification), and while she ate, someone finally explained to Alva what all was going on.

It turned out that, unbeknownst to Alva, the Death Knight was not simply a disguise, he was actually an alternate personality, over which Jeritza had very little control and of whose actions he had no recollection. (That, at least, explained why he hadn’t told anyone he had been responsible for the kidnapping of Flayn: he had not _known_.) Moreover, not being cognizant of the events that had transpired during Flayn’s rescue, he hadn’t realized that he was generally known to be the Death Knight, and so, once he’d finished his last assignment (he had, apparently, been with the main body of the Imperial Army, which had been mopping up resistance in the surrounding area), he’d returned to Garreg Mach to make his report to Edelgard, as Jeritza, and hadn’t been expecting to be accosted. (He also apologized very sincerely, solemn and heartfelt and earnest, to both Seteth and Manuela for his actions, and said he would of course also apologize to Flayn, but he would understand if Seteth didn’t want him anywhere near her, even to apologize. Seteth, rather disconcerted by the apology, said that he would ask Flayn, but that if she wasn’t comfortable with it, then it wasn’t happening. He also insisted that some sort of precautions be taken to ensure that the Death Knight couldn’t be given orders without Jeritza’s knowledge again. This seemed eminently reasonable.)

Anyway, Jeritza had returned to Garreg Mach, and Seteth had seen him, and he had attacked him, because _he kidnapped Flayn,_ and Jeritza hadn’t been expecting it, and then during the struggle he had lost his mask, and at that point Mercedes had gotten her first good look at his face and she’d recognized him as her long-lost baby brother Emile, and without stopping to think she’d leapt between them, throwing her arms around her brother’s neck, and started to sob about how she’d finally found him, and how much she’d missed him, which had rather interfered with Seteth’s murder attempt, and then Edelgard had shown up and tried to convince Seteth to calm down and let her explain, which Seteth was singularly unwilling to do, and it was at that point that Alva had arrived on the scene.

Alva, on her third helping of soup, was torn between feeling rather chagrined (she really ought to have asked more questions when El explained to her about the Death Knight, but at the time she’d just assumed that Jeritza just had berserker blackouts, not that he didn’t remember anything the Death Knight did) and entirely exasperated at everything.

She started by apologizing to Jeritza, because it was rather her fault that everyone knew he was the Death Knight, and she hadn’t known that he wasn’t aware of anything that happened when he was being the Death Knight. She also promised both him and Seteth that she would try to think of some way to make sure Jeritza retained control of himself, or at the very least retained some awareness of what took place when he was not in control. (If she also had a minor panic attack, later, when it occurred to her that the Death Knight might actually be a nightwalker in the earlier stages of possession, that was her own business. Over the strident objections of just about everyone, she had Jeritza put on the Death Knight helmet/mask and switch over, so that she could interrogate him, and managed to at least confirm that he was a crazy alternate personality of Jeritza’s, and as human as Jeritza was, which was a relief.) In the meantime, Jeritza promised to tell Edelgard whenever he thought the Death Knight was going to take over, and she would make sure he was supervised, so that there would be no repetitions of the Flayn Episode. Alva, despite her protests, was forbidden to exert herself in any way, on the grounds that she’d been asleep for two weeks solid, though she insisted that she not be confined to the infirmary like last time. They finally compromised on letting her take over Rhea’s roof garden, as long as she had someone with her at all times (Jeralt offered to be her personal guard, and even Alva had to begrudgingly admit that it was only appropriate.) Alva also claimed Fleche as her personal messenger-girl, since she was not permitted to wander about herself and fetch things (and people) that she wanted, so they had to be brought to her. (This didn’t actually become an issue until a few days later, because for the first couple of days, she was rather swamped with visitors—there were never less than two people fussing about her and dropping off get-well presents and telling her all about how glad they were that she had regained consciousness. Alva was touched.)

Unfortunately, all of this came to a grinding halt when they got word that apparently Dimitri had murdered his Uncle (also his _regent_ ) in a fury because someone had told him that he’d been involved in the Tragedy of Duscur, and someone called Cornelia (and Alva had never heard of her before, but El said she was one of Arundel’s people, which meant she was Bad News) had taken control of Fhirdiad with the support of most of the nobles from the western half of Faerghus (the ones who had survived the church’s purge following the western church’s rebellion), and that Dimitri was in prison, awaiting judgement. This led to some frantic debates as to whether or not it was legal for a king to execute someone without a trial, and if so, how that applied to a prince killing his regent. Edelgard hastily ordered that Dimitri had to get a proper trial, at least, and she set Hubert on researching precedent for what the legal position was if Dimitri was found guilty (which, given the person who was in charge was a nightwalker, was fairly well a foregone conclusion, whether or not he had actually done it). So, the nightwalkers had taken over Fhirdiad, and were making an attempt to take over all of Faerghus, and there wasn’t much she could do about it, and, unfortunately, they couldn’t even find out if Cornelia’s accusation was _true._ The last thing anyone had heard of Dimitri, he and Dedue had left for castle Fraldarius a few days before the battle of Garreg Mach, but they didn’t even know if he’d gotten there safely, let alone if he’d continued to Fhirdiad, or what kind of mental state he’d been in.

In the end, they wound up sending Mercedes (with Jeritza as bodyguard, and she was entirely serene in her assurance that he wouldn’t hurt her, even if he wasn’t) to discreetly travel to Castle Fraldarius and find out what she could about Dimitri’s activities since he had departed Garreg Mach. Felix refused point-blank to have anything to do with either his father or Dimitri, and anyway ‘tact and discretion’ were skills he totally lacked, and which this mission rather required, as well as ‘subtlety.’

A couple days after they departed, however, someone raised the alarm that a white dragon was approaching from the east. Since the Red Canyon, Rhea’s last known location, was _west_ of Garreg Mach, this was somewhat confusing, as well as extremely alarming. Mercifully, before anyone did something irreversible, a particularly eagle-eyed observer noticed that the white dragon was actually a white _wyvern,_ and it had a rider, so Claude managed to make it back to Garreg Mach without being shot down.

* * *

When Claude got the letter from Hilda saying that Alva was awake, and Jeritza was apparently not evil (and apparently Mercedes’s brother?), he had _just_ managed to convince his grandfather that yes, actually, Adrestia was serious about the whole ‘abolish the crest system etc’ thing, and that yes, he had personally witnessed _Archbishop Rhea_ turn into a giant monster and attack everyone before flying away, after a Very Angry Spirit spent the entire battle yelling at her for sacrificing people to try and attempt necromancy. He suppressed his instinctual reaction, which was to jump on Roshan’s back and immediately fly straight to Garreg Mach, in favor of trying to make sure everything was stable enough to leave in his Grandfather’s hands. Then, of course, a couple of days after he got the letter from Hilda, they got word that apparently Dimitri had been imprisoned by the court magician for the murder of his uncle (and, more importantly, his regent), which. First of all, since when did the _court magician_ have the authority to do something like that? His grandfather was not pleased, but when Claude pointed out that, actually, violent regicide (regenticide?) based on a rumor of someone’s involvement in his father’s death is _entirely in keeping with what he knows of Dimitri,_ he went from indignant to appalled. Claude sends a frantic messenger to Hilda, asking what gives, and focuses on trying to keep the Alliance from exploding while he waits to hear back. Then he realizes that he, on Roshan, is much faster than any messenger, and so Claude persuades his grandfather to promise not to do _anything rash_ and to do his best to keep the other ruling families of Leicester under some sort of control, and heads back to Garreg Mach to find out what’s going on. (Thankfully, Nader smuggled Roshan across the border two weeks ago, so he can fly over on his beautiful white wyvern, which is so much more stylish than a white flag.) 

He is met by Seteth, on his wyvern, when he’s still a fair distance out from the monastery proper, who very pointedly refrains from mentioning that perhaps failing to warn everyone in Garreg Mach that he has a white wyvern, after everyone witnessed Rhea transform into a white dragon, was not his brightest move. Claude is very embarrassed, and also vaguely horrified at what might have happened. He is distracted from his questions about the whole Dimitri situation by Seteth’s confirmation that Alva is awake! And mostly well! He’s so excited about this, in fact, that he nearly has Roshan fly him straight to Rhea’s little rooftop patio, before he remembers the whole _white wyvern_ issue and decides not to give anyone any unnecessary panic attacks. He does, however, rush straight there (once Roshan is safely ensconced with the other wyverns), though Seteth has to vouch for him before they let him up to see her. (He’d be annoyed, but these guards don’t know him, and given Alva’s recent vulnerability and previous experiences, he has to admit he approves of precautions. Even if they keep him from Alva.)

When he’s finally allowed up to see her, Claude is greeted by a deeply amused Alva, who is reclining on some sort of lounge, surrounded by books and papers, with a young girl in attendance and Jeralt keeping a watchful eye on them. (He doesn’t think about how he has to restrain himself from going down on one knee and kissing the hand she extends to him, because that way lies madness. Instead, he just clasps it in both of his, and remains firmly standing.) The girl takes one look at him, still in his riding leathers, and announces that she is going to bring tea and cakes for the two of them, because he looks hungry and Alva always needs to eat more. Alva thanks her, very seriously, and requests that perhaps some savory pastries as well as cakes would be nice? Fleche agrees, and runs off enthusiastically, taking Jeralt with her and shutting the door firmly behind them, to give them some privacy. “Cute kid,” says Claude, amused, and Alva laughs. “Isn’t she just? She’s a relative of Caspar’s, and she’s been in charge of making sure I don’t overexert myself. She takes her job very seriously, too—you should have heard the lecture she read Hubert when she thought he was keeping me from resting when I was tired.” Claude tries to picture the scene, and bursts out laughing. Alva joins in. When they recover, Alva flashes him a smile that briefly knocks him back on his heels, but he snaps out of it when she says, clearly still stifling laughter, “a white wyvern, Claude? Really?”

Claude groans. “Okay, in my defense, I’ve had her since she was a baby, so it really didn’t occur to me that she might look like the immaculate one from a distance. And you’re one to talk, they tell me you’ve been awake for a full week, and I didn’t hear a word about it!” Hilda doesn’t count, he adds mentally.

Alva winced. “Yes, sorry about that, but we’ve been trying to keep my condition quiet, and so we couldn’t really send a messenger to tell people that I’d woken up without admitting that I’d been unconscious. And then, well. The whole Dimitri situation.”

Claude gave her a look. “Right, yes, the Dimitri situation, which is actually why I came in the first place. _What_ is going on with the Dimitri situation?”

Alva suddenly looked more worn and unhappy than Claude had ever seen her. “We don’t _know._ Claude, all we know is, Dimitri was last heard of heading to Castle Fraldarius a few days before the battle, and he seemed to have come out of the worst of his raving madness. El says that this ‘Cornelia’ person is a nightwalker, or at least one of their people, which means that even if it is true, we need to keep Dimitri out of their clutches, and we really, really do not want her in charge, but we’re not sure how to get rid of her without completely destabilizing Faerghus, and—fun fact!—El’s uncle Arundel, who you might have heard of, is _also_ a nightwalker, and from all we can tell, one of the ones in charge, so you can imagine how well trying to denounce them would go.”

Claude had to admit that he had heard of Lord Arundel, and that yes, if it came down to his word against that of the young Emperor, with no evidence, then the result probably wouldn’t be pretty. He sank down into one of the chairs facing Alva’s sofa, groaning, “You lot don’t do anything by halves, do you? How are the Blue Lions taking this?”

“About as well as could be expected, which means not at all. We haven’t heard from Ingrid—apparently she went back to Galatea to talk to her father before I woke up?” And Claude realizes that of course, Alva doesn’t have any firsthand knowledge of what occurred just after the battle. He considers telling her about Hilda, but decides against it, and instead, just nods. Alva continues, “Well, Ashe went to make sure she was okay, after we heard—his position is kind of awkward, as well, given Lord Lonato’s involvement in the western church uprising. Sylvain and Felix are still here, and Felix seems to be torn between ‘I warned you something like this would happen!’ and impotent generalized fury, which, fair enough. Sylvain is sticking with him, for the most part, as is Annette—her position is a little precarious, too, since her father abandoned his title. We sent Mercedes with a bodyguard and a letter to go travel to Castle Fraldarius and see what she can find out, since she’s fairly unobtrusive, and as long as Jeritza is with her, no one will touch a hair on her head. Yuri offered to send one of his people, but, well, we rather thought that the duke would be more willing to see Mercedes—he’s met her, at least—where one of Yuri’s people would have trouble getting an audience.”

Claude stared. “…Jeritza. You sent _the Death Knight_ to guard Mercedes?”

Alva blinked. “Right, you missed that particular revelation—so, when he came back to Garreg Mach, Seteth, uh, freaked out and attacked him? And knocked his mask off. Mercedes was present, and when she saw his face, she _threw herself between them_ yelling ‘Emile!’ and hugging Jeritza and sobbing, which, it turns out, that’s enough to take even Seteth aback, and that’s how we all found out that apparently Jeritza is actually Mercedes’s long-lost baby brother. Also, apparently Jeritza isn’t actually aware of what happens when he’s the Death Knight, so.”

Right, that had been in Hilda’s letter, hadn’t it? Claude took a moment to process that. “…And you’re sure he won’t hurt her?”

“He isn’t, but she is, and at this point, I trust Mercedes’s judgement on this as much as I trust anything, and everyone agreed that having him inside the Monastery in general, but especially with Flayn and Seteth, was a terrible idea, and we had to do _something._ ”

Claude had to admit that this was an excellent point. “So, they’re due back…?”

“Assuming they aren’t delayed, some time next week. Meanwhile, Hubert has been putting out feelers to see if he can’t find out if the nightwalkers have Dimitri or not; right now, we can’t even be sure he was even in Fhirdiad, let alone determine if Cornelia assassinated Lord Rufus and just framed Dimitri, or if she convinced him that Lord Rufus was responsible for his father’s death and got him to kill Lord Rufus _for_ her.”

Claude hesitated. “And if it turns out that he did kill his uncle?”

Alva grimaced. “I don’t know. Honestly, I’m not entirely sure what we _can_ do, here, whether or not he did it; El and Hubert don’t actually have any evidence against Arundel, and without proof, getting rid of him is going to be hard—and we can’t just kill him, we need to find the rest of them, and if we show our hand too early, they’ll just go underground again, and we’ll never find them, and we still need to find their research if we want to have a real chance of reversing what was done to El and Lysithea and me. But the alternative is just…letting them keep control of Faerghus, and that’s not much better, and we don’t know _what_ to do! El is at least insisting that he get a trial, but if he’s found guilty, and we argue against execution, the only thing we have going for us is that he is in fact the rightful king, and we _can’t_ use that without hugely weakening our position with respect to abolishing the hereditary nobility!”

At this point, Claude heard loud, ostentatious knocking at the door to the balcony, after which it started to open, and in the interest of not being overheard by Fleche, who had in fact just returned with the requested tea and cakes (and Jeralt, carrying a platter of savory pasties that made his mouth water), changed the subject to something less dangerous.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so, this took a while! Sorry about that. My asthma/acid reflux has been acting up this last week-ish, and I've been coughing something fiercely, also I had a lot of trouble deciding how I wanted to proceed from where I left off (I wrote several scenes that got scrapped entirely, tried a couple of different things, and in the end settled on this.) 
> 
> I love Fleche?? She kind of came out of nowhere, but she's darling. She and Jeralt (and Seteth) have _totally_ caught on to the fact that Claude and Alva are very interested in each other, but Alva hasn't realized it herself yet, and Claude might have, but he's compartmentalizing really hard at the moment. (Fleche is totally going to be trying to matchmake them.) 
> 
> I totally forgot, actually, that a) the fact that Jeritza is the death knight isn't actually entirely accepted/known information, and b) Jeritza apparently has no memory of what he does as the Death Knight. So that came back to bite Alva. I have some ideas on how to deal with his situation, overall, but we'll have to see. 
> 
> One interesting point for me is, I would 100% believe it if someone told me that Dimitri _really did_ kill his uncle because he thought he was responsible for the tragedy of duscur, so a large part of this was based on my reflecting 'when this is announced, what do people think is going on?' The various nobles that back Dimitri, do they believe it's true? Do they, when faced with the raving madman Dimitri becomes, legitimately think 'oh, this guy should totally be king, he absolutely did not murder his uncle for revenge?' because that seems kind of unlikely, to me. 
> 
> (Also, I really stopped and thought about Edelgard's situation with Thales/Arundel and Cornelia taking over Faerghus, and geez, she has, like, zero options. Zero good options, anyway. We'll have to see what happens next.)


	20. Ducks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which we hear Fleche's account of what's been going on since Alva woke up, there are shenanigans, and Claude gets some answers from Seteth.

When Randolph came to Fleche and told her, very seriously, that she had been offered a position as Lady Alva’s personal attendant, she was gobsmacked. Before she’d even managed to recover from the shock enough to answer, her brother was continuing, explaining that this was a very serious thing, that she was young, and if she didn’t feel comfortable accepting a permanent place in Lady Alva’s retinue, she should say so, and no one would think less of her, especially since she was so young, but that it had been brought to everyone’s attention that Lady Alva had no personal retainers, which was _absurd_ for a daughter of the imperial household, and so Captain Jeralt was now her personal guard, and she had _specifically requested Fleche as her lady-in-waiting!_ Her! Fleche! She hadn’t even realized that Lady Alva knew who she was, let alone well enough to request her by name!

_Don’t be hasty,_ her brother told her. _This is a life-long commitment you’d be making, and it’s not a decision to make lightly._ As if Fleche was going to say no! Randolph, however, insisted that she at least meet the Lady Alva properly before she made up her mind, so Fleche agreed, and she was ushered up onto the rooftop patio adjoining onto the suite of rooms previously inhabited by the Archbishop, where she was brought face to face with a rather wan looking Lady Alva, reclining on a large settee and insulated from the early-spring chill by several blankets and a rather large shawl. She had put aside the book she was perusing when Jeralt announced them, and both Fleche and Randolph bowed deeply, offering a formal greeting.

Alva just laughed and waved them over, telling them to please, sit down, and not stand on ceremony.

They sat in the chairs indicated, and Fleche found herself at a loss for words. Randolph broke the stillness, asking abruptly, “Pardon my rudeness, your highness, but I was wondering what reason you have for offering such a post to my sister? And what happened to the previous holder of the position?”

Alva raised an eyebrow at Randolph, saying, “Drop the ‘your highness’, please, just call me Alva. Lady Alva or my Lady if you absolutely must, but I’d really just prefer Alva. With regards to your first question, I know it must seem highly irregular, but honestly I need someone young and cheerful and energetic to run errands and messages for me, and I admit that, initially, I simply meant to request her services as my errand-girl for my period of convalescence, as I have been informed very firmly that I’m not allowed to run around myself, but when Jeralt claimed the position of my personal guard, that reminded everyone that I don’t actually have any attendants whatsoever, and El insisted that I needed a proper retinue; at least two retainers. Hers, of course, are Hubert and Ladislava, and while Jeralt can hold the same position for me that Ladislava holds for El, he can’t guard me and run my errands at the same time, so…” Alva shrugged, and her smile was now a trifle twisted, not entirely happy. “…I needed a second retainer. And I figured, why not? Fleche was evidently willing to run in and interrupt my sister in an emergency, which is a characteristic I appreciate, and she’s young enough not to be set in her ways, which is also a plus.” Alva paused, then, and when Randolph nodded his acceptance of her explanation, she continued, in a softer voice, staring vaguely into the middle distance, her face losing its levity, replaced by an expression of deep sadness. “Aderyn—one of my tutors, when I was a girl, the closest thing I had to a retainer—was taken from me by the same scourge that took me from El for so many years. When I was first taken ill, she insisted that she attend me, and though I tried to send her away, out of Enbarr, to safety among my mother’s people, she refused. She stayed.” Abruptly, Alva’s gaze refocused on Randolph. “Rest assured, I will not permit your sister to share her fate, if I can at all help it.”

Fleche watched Randolph’s face relax a trifle, as he accepted Alva’s reassurance. Finally, she found her voice, asking her own question: “What was she like? Aderyn, I mean.” She hoped it was okay to ask that, but she thought it might give her an idea of what Alva was expecting, and what kind of person Alva was, herself. From the way Alva smiled at her, though, she rather thought she didn’t mind being asked.

“Aderyn knew _everything._ Any question I could think of, she knew the answer, or at least where to find the answer, though often she’d refuse to tell me if she thought I ought to know it already, and she’d make me look it up myself. My mother taught me to sing and dance, and I had a separate tutor for combat, but everything else was Aderyn. She taught me to read and write, and even though she wasn’t Adrestian herself, she taught me all about the politics and noble families; they originally employed a separate tutor for that sort of thing, but Aderyn saw him strike me, once, when I asked a question out of turn, and since she had _very_ strong opinions on the topic of encouraging curiosity in children, she had him dismissed and took over his duties herself. She always had caramels in her pockets for when I did particularly well in my studies, and every Friday, if I hadn’t done anything too outrageous that week, she’d take me to the opera.”

The look on Fleche’s face must have given away her trepidation at the idea of trying to live up to such an example, because she then said, “Don’t worry, I don’t expect you to be like her! But why don’t we give it a week on trial, to see how we get along, and if we don’t like each other, you can just carry on being my messenger, and I’ll find someone else. That sound fair?”

Fleche agreed that that sounded very fair indeed. Honestly, she would have agreed to be Alva’s retainer then and there, because she seemed very nice and really, it was an honor, but since both Alva and Rudolph seemed to think that the trial period was a good idea, she acquiesced, and Alva cheerfully sent her off to report her new status to Edelgard and Hubert, who would get her set up and formalize her new position. Edelgard, who was significantly less intimidating now that the invisible weight of her sister’s unconsciousness had been lifted from her shoulders, promptly sat her down and gave her some tips on how to recognize when Alva was overexerting herself, and how to distract her and make her rest when necessary, which mostly involved asking Alva to tell her a story, or fetching Petra so that she and Alva could continue to compare the spirit-tales of Brigid to those Alva knew, because apparently stories and songs were the best way to distract Alva. She was also informed that one of her chief duties would probably be making sure that Alva ate and drank enough, since she was likely to lose track of time when she was working, and even gave her a handy list of Alva’s favorite foods!

For the first several days of Fleche’s new assignment, her duties chiefly consisted of making sure that Alva always had some sort of food and drink available to her (she had committed the list Edelgard gave her to memory, and furthermore acquired some caramels, which had made Alva cry and then hug her tightly when she first produced one) and shooing out whatever visitor had come to see her when Alva started to flag. Well, that and politely sending away anyone who had the bad timing to arrive when Alva was already asleep, and making sure no one woke her up. After the second time Caspar accidentally woke Alva up, Flayn was seconded to Fleche as Medical Authority In Residence, since she was the one monitoring Alva’s vitals by then. There was a minor argument as to whether or not serenading a sleeping Alva was restful or not, and another about whether it was really a good idea for her to be outside on really chilly days, but Alva appealed to Edelgard, who overruled Flayn on both points, firmly stating that if Alva felt that music helped her rest, then she was probably right, and if it was cold outside, then they could bring up a foot-stove and plenty of blankets, but Alva was to be allowed to remain out in the fresh air.

All that changed when a messenger brought word of Dimitri’s arrest for the murder of Duke Rufus to Garreg Mach. Suddenly, the tension that had eased with Alva’s awakening was back, and everyone seemed strained and worried. Suddenly, rather than just bringing Alva food, Fleche had to pester her into eating it; instead of politely shooing visitors away when Alva started to flag, she had to order them to leave, and as the tension mounted, she had to recruit Jeralt to back her up when people showed up determined that they needed to talk to Alva _right now,_ even though she was fast asleep. Alva’s presence was apparently _entirely necessary_ at any number of secret meetings in closed rooms, not out on the terrace where she had been recovering, and Fleche was not even allowed to remain in the room with her!

So, when Claude von Riegan showed up on a white wyvern and the first thing he did was insist on being taken up to see Alva (who was _not_ sleeping, though she was clearly tired), Fleche was not predisposed to like him.

She changed her mind almost immediately when he walked out onto her lady’s terrace. His look of deep relief and pleasure at the sight of Alva softened her resolve, and when she extended one hand towards him and greeted him in a voice of deep, fond amusement, and he strode forward and clasped her hand in both of his—well. It seemed that this would be a very serviceable distraction for Alva after all, who needed a break, and since the young man looked very hungry indeed, it would be a good opportunity to get Alva to eat something more substantial than the light snacks she’d had so far that day. When Alva responded to her offer to fetch tea and cakes by requesting _savory pastries,_ Fleche decided that she approved of this young man very much, because anyone who could make Alva put down her work and suggest eating _real food_ was an ally worth having. So, she grabbed Jeralt and took him with her, shutting the door firmly to let them have their reunion in privacy, and when she and Jeralt return, she makes a point of knocking very loudly before opening the door to the terrace, giving them plenty of time to separate themselves if they happened to be embracing or engaging in any similarly indiscreet behavior.

(She was very disappointed to see that, based on their positions and postures when she opened the door, they had been very properly engaged in simple conversation, and in fact Alva looks rather less happy than she had when Fleche departed. She does, however, smile helplessly at him when he moves around to sit next to her on the settee and serve her tea, and at his insistence, Alva eats two whole savory pastries, when Fleche had been lucky to convince her to eat just one, so she forgives him.)

When Alva looks about ready to fall over with weariness, Claude rises to leave without being asked, requesting a private word with Fleche in the hall. Fleche, torn between excitement at the idea that he might be recruiting her to help him court Alva properly (and if ever a lady deserved to be courted properly, like someone in a tale, it’s Alva, Fleche thinks loyally) or anxiety at the idea that he might ask her to do something frightful, follows.

She is completely taken aback, then, when he starts the conversation by asking her to help him engage in comic mischief for the sake of her lady’s well-being. According to Claude, the best thing she can do for Alva would be to create silly chaos.

Fleche is not convinced. Once again, she revises her opinion of this young man, this time back downward a trifle. He insists that it’s true, however, and he gives examples of the kinds of hijinks the two of them got up to last time she was recovering from magical exhaustion, and Fleche has to admit that if he’s lying, he’s doing an awfully good job of it. She tells him she’ll think about it, and thanks him for the advice.

That evening, she asks Alva if it’s true. Alva blinks, and laughs, and to Fleche’s astonishment, _confirms_ Claude’s claim! She swears Fleche to secrecy, and tells her that she’s actually part _fae,_ like in some of the stories she’s told Fleche over the last nearly-a-week, and that _yes,_ she really does get power from laughter and joy and mischief. She says that she was going to tell Fleche if she decided to be her retainer properly, because she deserved to know before she made that kind of promise, and Fleche immediately tells her that she _does_ want to be her retainer, really, because _someone_ needs to make sure she eats, and Alva hugs her and laughs, and Fleche pretends not to notice the dampness at her collar. When Fleche next sees Claude, she catches his eye and nods, just a little, and he gives her a wide smile, his eyes dancing with mirth.

Claude buys a whole assortment of small, brightly colored wooden ducks in the village, and Fleche hides them as she goes about her day, inside drawers and behind books and even inside shoes, sometimes, places where they won’t be found immediately but will, eventually, be discovered. She makes a point of leaving several in places where Claude definitely could not have put them, like in the lady’s bathhouse. At first, people are just slightly confused, but as more and more little wooden ducks appear in improbable places, the level of consternation rises appreciably. Claude, when charged with hiding the ducks, denies with great indignation the idea that he could be such a pervert as to invade the lady’s bathhouse, or that he would be so impolitic as to go through Edelgard’s desk, or, having done so, be so indiscreet as to leave an obvious sign of his trespass. His denial is grudgingly accepted, and suddenly ducks are appearing in places where Fleche definitely did not put them, as other people join the fun, leaving the found ducks in new and inventive places, such as on top of the statue of the goddess, and then one day everyone wakes up to discover that Teutates has somehow acquired an enormous duck-shaped hat, the source of which he refuses point blank to identify.

Alva, Fleche notices with distinct gratification and pleasure, seems to be regaining her energy and spirit by the day, and faced with her suddenly-blooming complexion, Fleche redoubles her efforts. When she hears a pageboy lamenting that he can’t afford to buy a duck, and unless he finds one himself he’ll never get his hands on one, she suggests grabbing some chalk and drawing ducks instead, and within two days, all the chalk from the abandoned classrooms has vanished, and ridiculous ducks wearing absurd outfits are showing up on stray bits of masonry all over the monastery. This catches the imagination of Ferdinand and Dorothea, and the next thing Fleche knows, there is a rash of new, customized ducks appearing, each one representing a resident of Garreg Mach, some more obvious than others; Hubert finds a villainous-looking duck under his pillow, Felix’s duck has a tiny sword, and Sylvain’s duck has hearts instead of eyes, while Linhardt and Caspar find their ducks together, a small duck with its beak open as if it’s yelling, carrying a larger, lanky duck that is fast asleep. Edelgard’s duck is bright red and wears a crown, and Alva’s duck isn’t a duck at all, but a songbird, as is Annette’s, though hers is distinguished by the fact that it is carrying an enormous pile of books. Flayn’s duck has an enormous fish in its beak, and she doesn’t stop smiling for hours after she finds it.

* * *

Claude is very pleased with himself. He’d had some trouble trying to come up with an entirely harmless prank he and Fleche could pull, without causing undue difficulties for anyone (since everyone was already overworked) without repeating any of their previous activities, but the ducks had been inspired. He’d tracked down Hilda, to get a full summary of everything that had been going on since he’d left, and it had been illuminating, covering a great deal that Alva hadn’t been aware of, since she was still not permitted to wander the monastery freely. He’d also sent a coded message to his grandfather the day he arrived, which had said (essentially) that he was safe, and people here didn’t know much more about the situation in Faerghus than they did, and he was awaiting further developments. (He did take the chance of confirming that Cornelia was Bad News, and that his grandfather should take care in his dealings with her and Lord Arundel, but that this was Top Secret. His grandfather was a canny old bird, and Claude trusted him to take the warning to heart without showing his hand.) That accomplished, he turned his attention to his endeavor to perk up Alva, and he was very pleased to report that she was doing _far_ better than she had been when he arrived.

In fact, once the Duck Prank has started gaining steam and Alva had recovered enough that she was practicing dancing and singing with Dorothea for a few hours every day, Claude found he had enough free time to redirect his attention to the question of what was going on with Seteth, Flayn, and ‘Teutates’. Seteth, who had the crest of Cichol, and whose sister had the crest of Cethleann, and who had left Flayn with ‘Teutates’, claiming that he was leaving her with a _relative_ for safety. And Rhea had called ‘Teutates’ _Indech,_ and he’d called her _sister._ And no one had been terribly concerned about the fact that Seiros’s casket had been empty.

So, he asked Seteth to accompany him out on a flight to exercise Roshan, and once they were safely away from any potential eavesdroppers, he asked him, point-blank, if he was Cichol. Seteth sputtered for several minutes, before demanding he explain how he came to that conclusion, and Claude calmly set out all his evidence, praying that Seteth wouldn’t just decide to kill him and hide his body.

When Claude finished, Seteth was glaring at him. “And how many people have you told about your little theory?”

Claude mentally crossed his fingers, and admitted, “No-one. Though I suspect Alva might figure it out herself, once she’s no longer quite so distracted by trying to come up with a solution to the Jeritza-Death Knight problem, and all her other preoccupations.”

Seteth’s glare eased a little bit, and he grimaced, nodding in acquiescence to Claude’s point about Alva. “And if it’s true? What do you intend to do with this information?”

Claude blinked. “Well, first of all, try to convince you to tell me the truth about what all has been going on, because you must know more than you’re saying about things, and you don’t seem the type to be party to the great lie that was the Church of Seiros, and secondly, if you or Indech would be willing to stand up and admit who you are, once the nightwalkers have been dealt with, that would help discredit Rhea and her faction, thus mitigating the inevitable conflict—but since that’s dependent on your support, obviously I wouldn’t do it without your agreement, beforehand.”

Seteth blinked. Slowly, he started to chuckle. “Of course your first priority is finding out the truth. And if I deny your theory, or refuse to cooperate?”

Claude debated bluffing, but decided against it. Instead, he rolled his eyes, and said, “Then we go back to the Monastery, and I keep trying to ferret out the truth, without your help, but I don’t tell anyone else about my theory, except perhaps to warn Alva that you denied it, to prevent her asking awkward questions. And the fight with Rhea and her supporters is rather longer and bloodier than it otherwise might be.”

Seteth eyed him thoughtfully. “You’re rather experienced at keeping secrets, aren’t you?”

“I’ve had to be,” Claude admitted. Then, spurred by a vague idea of trades and bargains, considering his experiences with Alva, he added, “if it would make you feel better, I’ll tell you one of my secrets, in exchange?”

“Both of us under oath not to betray the other?”

“Both of us under oath,” confirmed Claude.

Seteth hesitated. “And you’ll swear to protect Flayn to the best of your ability, and not let this be used against us?”

“I swear, on Alva’s name,” Claude said, and was only slightly startled to see the familiar flicker of light.

Seteth gave in. “Alright. Yes, you’re broadly correct, though the tale, as Edelgard relates it, is only partly true. But to tell it properly, I have to go back much farther, to the time when the goddess Sothis arrived in Fódlan from somewhere far away—I do not know where—and took a human form, to fit in with those she found here. She used her own blood to birth her children, who called themselves Nabateans. For a while, the Nabateans and the humans lived peacefully, and prospered; but humans are capricious, and they began to feud amongst themselves and fought petty, senseless wars, and when Sothis stepped in to stop this, she was forced to assume authority over them, to prevent it. So, the wars ceased, for a time, but there were those who—well, who resented being ruled over by the children of the goddess, the Nabateans, and they rebelled. There was a great, horrible war, and most of Fódlan was laid to waste, most of the population slain; in the end, Sothis won, but at great cost. The surviving rebels, who called themselves ‘Agarthans’, retreated beneath the ground, licking their wounds and lying in wait. Sothis spent most of her remaining energy to restore the ravaged land, and so doing, fell into a long restorative slumber in the Holy Tomb. There were two factions of Nabateans, after that: those who felt that the humans had a right to rule themselves, and if they wanted to fight each other, it was not our place to interfere,” _Aha,_ thought Claude, _there it is,_ ‘our.’ _So he is a Nabatean_ —and then he put that thought aside, as Seteth continued his tale, saying, “and those who felt that most humans had been merely led astray by the Agarthans, and that the Nabateans, wiser and more powerful, had a duty to protect them, even from themselves. At first, those who believed that the humans had a right to rule themselves, without Nabatean interference, settled in Zanado, to protect the Holy Tomb and isolate ourselves from the humans, as they recovered; while those who felt that it was the duty of the Children of the Goddess to guide the humans, and those who felt that at least we could help them recover from the ravages left behind by the war, went out among them, sometimes hiding themselves, and sometimes setting themselves up as rulers, or gods. They found a way to grant a small portion of their power and longevity to humans, giving some of their blood to chosen humans, and those humans became the first crest-bearers. Eventually, however, those who lived in Zanado began to hear accounts of the deaths and disappearances of those Nabateans who resided outside the Zanado settlement, and they started to send out emissaries, to systematically enforce their authority over the humans.”

At this point, Seteth hesitated, and Claude got the impression that whatever came next, it was something bad, or at least dangerous. He met Seteth’s evaluating gaze head-on, and did his best to look trustworthy, biting his tongue to suppress all the things he wanted to say about the history Seteth had recounted thus far. Eventually, Seteth seemed to find whatever it was he was looking for, because he continued, very carefully. “For the next part of the story, I must explain something about the nature of Nabateans. You remember my reaction when young Alva first mentioned, how did she put it, oh yes, ‘the crest-stone-resurrection thing’?”

Claude acknowledged that yes, he remembered. It was hardly the kind of thing he could have forgotten.

Seteth continued to hesitate, and Claude’s impression that whatever this piece of information was, it was very dangerous, became even stronger. “Would it help if I promised not to use the information against any of you, or tell anyone who would use it against you?” He offered, unsure.

Seteth grimaced, and, echoing the statement that Alva had made to Claude, months ago, said, “If I thought you would, I wouldn’t have told you any of this, in the first place. But you must understand, this is—very, very dangerous information.”

“I’m the heir to the throne of Almyra, as well as the Grand Duchy of Riegan,” Claude told him, flatly. “And my best friend is Alva von Hresvelg, and her _secrets_ have secrets, all of them dangerous.”

Seteth blinked. Considered. Eventually, he admitted, “I suppose it has to come out sooner or later, if only when that spirit of Alva’s gets a good look at a crest stone for the first time,” and before Claude could marshal his thoughts on that point, he continued, “While Nabateans—Sothis included—do not age in the same way that humans do, and can live for a very long time indeed, they _are_ subject to a peculiar form of—degeneration. Their power grows, but their body does not, and the result is that they slowly lose themselves entirely, becoming unthinking, unreasoning, non-sentient—and generally violently insane. The only way to avoid this is for the Nabatean to seal the greater part of their power away, in an object. Sothis sealed her own powers into a stone, what became known as a ‘crest stone’, and placed it inside her own body, that she might still access most of her powers, without being overwhelmed by them. It was imperfect, but it worked; and each of her children, shaped as they were in imitation of her, was similarly born with a crest stone in their chest, by their heart. This stone carried the greater part of their power, as they grew, and eventually, as they aged, a portion of their soul. To remove this stone is to kill them, as it carries the majority of their life-force. But there are—strict rules, as to how to handle the crest stones of deceased Nabateans, set down by Sothis, because they carry enough of the power, and, potentially, spirit, to potentially damage anyone who might try to handle them. When a human who bears no crest attempts it, they are overwhelmed by the power, and become something like a completely feral, degenerated Nabatean: that is the cause of the transformation into demonic beasts. For a Nabatean, it accelerates the process of degeneration; for a human crest-bearer, carrying part of the power of a Nabatean in their blood, the effect is—or can be—more insidious. There are warnings, from the land whence Sothis came, of spirits that sealed their entire power and soul into objects rather like crest-weapons, and entrusted them to humans with whom they had formed a blood-pact. Over time and repeated usage, the personality of the wielder could become distorted, until it was totally displaced by the soul that had been sealed away. Even among Nabateans, this was not a thing that was spoken of, for to willfully overwrite a living soul in an attempt to live forever, or bring back the dead, was the greatest possible taboo.” 

Claude thought about that. It certainly sounded nasty. “But, in the short term, it allows the wielder to access the power of the dead Nabatean?”

Seteth sighed. “Yes. And that is what the Agarthans found—they somehow discovered that, by taking the bones and crest stones of slain Nabateans, they could create weapons that channeled their powers, as long as the wielder was one who bore the blood of the Nabatean in question. So, they started small, hunting individual Nabateans who were vulnerable, outside of Zanado, taking their blood and crafting weapons of their bodies that were effective against other Nabateans. Eventually, when they had slain the majority of Nabateans living outside Zanado, they recruited a band of thieves, led by a man who called himself _Nemesis,_ and convinced him to sneak into the Holy Tomb and steal the sleeping body of Sothis, from whose body the Sword of the Creator was crafted. With this done, they took their weapons, and attacked Zanado—slaying all who resided within, save one. That was when they started calling Zanado the Red Canyon—for all the blood spilled there. The one survivor, the youngest of Sothis’s children, born just before she fell into her slumber, called herself Seiros, and went out in search of any other surviving Nabateans, to avenge the slaughter.”

Claude felt sick. “That’s…”

Seteth grimaced expressively. “Yes. Not a very pretty tale, is it? So, Nemesis became the King of Liberation, for he overthrew the Nabateans and Sothis. And Seiros found the handful of remaining Nabateans who had neither been in Zanado, nor demanding worship outside it, who had thus avoided the slaughter, and they banded together to defeat the Agarthans, to reclaim the bodies of their kin, aided by the man who would become the first emperor of Adrestia. And in the end, Nemesis and his followers were defeated, though it was a long and bloody war before that.”

“And then?”

Seteth sighed. “And then…Well. There were only the five of us left—I lost my wife in the battle, and several of the other survivors of the Red Canyon Massacre were slain in the fighting, and those of us who remained…Macuil had ever been one of those who thought that it was wrong to interfere with humans, that if they wanted nothing to do with us, then we should let them be; he only joined because his lover did, and his lover, too, perished in the fighting. That rather confirmed his decision to have nothing to do with humanity at large, so he left, and I’ve not heard from him since. Indech has always been a recluse, and uncomfortable around people, so he returned to his place as the guardian of Lake Teutates, where no one wanted him to do anything more than save the occasional drowning child. Cethleann…”

Suddenly, Claude knew what had happened to Cethleann. “She overextended herself in the last battle, didn’t she? Healing. And she fell into a coma.”

Seteth nodded, his mouth a bitter twist. “Yes. And she was Cichol’s daughter, and he loved her very much, and he had just lost his wife—so he took her, and retreated to a hidden place, in the cliffs above Zanado, and set up an infirmary, where he could watch over his daughter, as she slept, and recovered. So Seiros was left alone, and she formed the church—we’d rather insisted that she not set herself up as a ruler, that she wasn’t allowed to deify herself or us, which is why we became ‘saints.’ We insisted that a _human_ be made the ruler, hence the Adrestian Empire, and agreed to be ‘saints’ to allow for a version of the story to be propagated that didn’t involve making weapons out of corpses, and once everything was stable, Seiros was to stage her own death, and leave the humans to themselves, taking the Agarthan weapons with her. Which,” he added, sounding angry now, in a way he hadn’t, before, “she _did not do._ She did fake her own death, but she did _not_ leave, and she did not dispose of the bodies of our brethren properly! She took up the name Rhea, and made herself archbishop, and rather than allowing the bloodlines of those who bore Nabatean blood to die out, she encouraged them to flourish! And wield the weapons! And rather than encouraging everyone to make peace with their neighbors, she encouraged the people of Fódlan to hate and make war on anyone who did not worship her!”

Claude was rather intimidated. “When did you find out?”

Seteth growled, and it was a low, inhuman sound, that made a shiver run down Claude’s spine. “I knew that she had made herself Archbishop and persisted in meddling, that she had not disposed of the ‘Holy Relics’ properly, and fostered a society that glorified crest-bearers, when she sent me a message, something like fifteen, twenty years ago; I came to Garreg Mach in answer to her letter, and I could hardly have missed it. I was furious, but she claimed that the glorification of the crest-bearers and Seiros over Sothis was none of her doing, and pointed out that if no one had been taken over due to overuse of a relic by now, it wasn’t going to happen—that it was safe enough. She said that she hadn’t been able to make herself stay away from Garreg Mach, that people kept putting words in her mouth, and if she couldn’t correct them as Seiros, she could at least try to keep them from doing so as Rhea.” Seteth’s expression was a peculiar combination of shame and anger, now, and he shrugged. “I accepted her explanation. So, I took a position that allowed me to oversee the library, to make sure that there were no hints about the true nature of the Nabateans and the Holy Relics lying about, and tried to make sure that Garreg Mach would be a safe place for Flayn, when she awoke. I didn’t realize the depth of her lies and madness until it came out over the course of this past year.”

Claude nodded slowly, accepting the explanation. “So, if you’re all Nabateans, why are you and Flayn human-shaped, while Indech is a giant turtle, and Rhea—Seiros, I suppose—is normally human-shaped but able to turn into a giant dragon?”

Seteth frowned. “All Nabateans have two forms, a true form and a human form, and when young, we can shift freely between the two; as we age, however, and our power grows, the shift in power level between the two forms becomes too great, and to avoid losing ourselves to the madness, we must pick a form, and remain in it. Indech and Macuil chose their greater forms, for better protection in their solitary lives—being larger, those who choose those forms retain access to more of their power; my wife and I were fond of humans, and so we chose to surrender our power and live as humans. Cethleann was born in human shape, and seldom used her other form to begin with, though I suppose that she might be young enough still that she could change her mind. That Rhea retains the ability to shift between forms… I cannot explain. I do not, however, which is why I was obliged to ask Indech for aid, when faced with the Immaculate One.”

Claude nodded, slowly. “I see. And you think the nightwalkers are what remains of the Agarthans?”

Seteth growled, again, and again, it made the hair on the back of Claude’s neck stand up. “I do not know. It definitely appears that Those Who Slither In The Dark, as you call them, represent what remains of the Agarthans, or perhaps their descendants and/or followers; but the Agarthans were human, to the best of my knowledge, and from the descriptions I’ve heard of Alva’s ‘nightwalkers’, they definitely _aren’t._ ”

That was…worrying. But Claude decided that he had enough to think about, now, and they’d been out here for quite a while, so he got to his feet, and extended a hand to Seteth. “Thank you for confiding in me,” he told him, very seriously. “Even just the knowledge of the true origins of the Agarthans is very valuable.” Before Seteth had a chance to respond, he added, “I do think, though, that you should consider admitting Alva, at least, to your confidence. As you said earlier, Neith—her spirit—is liable to figure out some of this on her own, and Alva and Neith working with incomplete information, trying to piece together the rest, might be dangerous. And, well,” and here Claude gave Seteth his most winning smile, “They’re going to be trying to set the record straight about the church of Seiros, whatever you do, and if you chime in now, you’ll have more say about the spread of information than you might otherwise—it’ll be easier to correct things now, rather than later. And, of course, there’s the whole ‘let’s try to reduce the violence of the inevitable clash with Rhea’s faction of the church’ argument I made earlier.”

While Seteth didn’t actually agree, Claude thought the face he pulled in response to that little speech was promising. So, he let it go, and they headed back to Garreg Mach in silence.

The next day, before Claude had had a chance to decide what to do with his new information, Sothis woke up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this is significantly longer than I expected? I started out with what was going to be, essentially, a Fleche interlude (I knew I wanted there to be hijinks to help Alva recover, and I wanted Claude to recruit Fleche, but then Fleche took over for a while, and suddenly she and Jeralt are Alva's retainers, which, okay? Unplanned, but I'll roll with it.), though it took me ages to come up with a prank that would a) not be a repetition of anything that had happened before and b) not be actually problematically disruptive or actually mean to anyone (like screwing with the food, or something). But then I thought of the ducks, and I love the ducks. _Then_ Claude started pointing out that he had Questions about the saints, and Indech/Teutates, and he insisted on asking Seteth about this during the down time while they wait for Mercedes to return. So, uh, sorry about the enormous wall of exposition? (I admit, a lot of what Seteth says is taken from my personal headcanon, though it's a bit more generous than I normally am to the Nabateans, since it's the story according to Seteth.) 
> 
> Sorry about the enormous infodump. Seteth considered denying everything, but he remembers the parts of Neith's rant that involved what she saw when she looked at the binding on Emrys, so he's decided that there's not that much point in denial, at this point, and the full truth is probably better than a partial truth. (Incidentally, how he feels about himself and his daughter being sainted but his wife not being sainted didn't come up, but I imagine he doesn't like the fact that she was forgotten.)


	21. Invoking Greater Spirits

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Sothis meets people properly, including Neith. (Beware a certain amount of random world-building.) NOTE TO ANYONE WHO NORMALLY SKIPS MY END NOTES: I AM PUTTING A POTENTIAL PLOT DEVELOPMENT UP TO THE VOTE, DETAILS IN THE END NOTE.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For clarification, most of the world-building stuff in this chapter isn't taken from my personal headcanon about the game, it's specific to Alva's fae/spirit system.

Claude was in the middle of sharing a perfectly lovely breakfast with Alva, on her terrace, under the watchful eye of Jeralt and the gleeful eye of Fleche (and Claude was sure she was up to something, but he hadn’t quite figured out what), when Emrys Eisner interrupted them, as disarranged as Claude had ever seen her, and burst out, “Sothis is back!”

Jeralt, still uncomfortable with the idea of his daughter’s spiritual passenger, didn’t look nearly as thrilled by this knowledge as his daughter did, and Fleche just looked confused, so Claude gathered that whatever briefings she’d had on various state secrets necessary to attend to Alva’s needs hadn’t covered their resident quasi-avatar. Alva, meanwhile, looked both pleased and relieved, and immediately turned to Fleche and told her to go fetch Seteth and Edelgard. Fleche, baffled but obedient, trotted off, and Emrys didn’t bother to wait for her to be out of earshot to continue, “I told her what I remembered about what Neith said about and did to the binding, and she says she definitely feels more stable, but we’re neither of us confident enough to try to replace it on our own. Can you help us, or do we need Neith?”

At that, Alva paused, her cup of tea halfway to her mouth, and then lowered it back to the saucer, untasted, as she hummed thoughtfully, and then she shut her eyes, concentrating. Finally, just when Claude was debating the merits of reaching out and touching her arm or speaking her name to try and get her attention, she opened her eyes again, and answered, “Neith says that if you want to actually do away with the original binding entirely, you’ll need her help, and it might not actually be possible to do that at all without Rhea, but she’d have to inspect the healed binding to say for sure. If you just want to rework it a bit so that it’s a bargain between the two of you, and it doesn’t keep trying to force your souls to coexist in the same space, then that’s something I can help you with myself.”

Claude picked the most pressing of the five different questions that statement raised for him, and exclaimed, “what do you mean, _Neith says?_ ”

Alva gave him a startled look. “…I asked her? We’re both strong enough to hold brief conversations, now, along the link. She’s not, like, sitting in some sort of pocket dimension, waiting to be called upon, she’s” and Alva paused for a moment, here, waving vaguely around her head, “here, watching. For her to make herself heard, even to me, requires some energy, and her perceptions of things are kind of muted, since she kind of piggybacks on my senses unless she’s invoked. I could talk to her out loud, if it would make you feel better about it, but you’d not hear her answers, and she isn’t always paying attention, so if I want to talk to her, I tend to send it along the link.”

Claude remembered, abruptly, that when she’d summoned Neith before, Neith had called Alva her _chosen._ Distantly, he heard his own voice asking, “is that usual? For a bargain like yours?”

“Neith had to piece my sanity back together,” Alva reminded him, dryly. “And help me figure out what was and wasn’t real, for a while. So the mental link was a necessary component. I don’t know if our situation is one for which ‘usual’ has much meaning.” 

Claude acknowledged the truth of her point with a nod, and as he opened his mouth to ask one of the other many, many questions he suddenly had about this whole situation, Jeralt spoke up. “If you help them rework it now, would that prevent Neith from removing or replacing it later?”

“No, not at all,” said Alva, sounding bemused at the very idea. Then, she cocked her head as if listening for a moment, and added, “Neith says that she can’t really give sound advice about that without looking at the binding again, though, now that the damage has had a chance to heal. Also Sothis herself, because—Neith, I’m not saying that, it’s rude!”

“What does she want in exchange for looking at the binding again?” Asked Claude, pointedly, “And are you recovered enough to support the invocation that would require?”

Alva smiled at him, all mischief, and said, “Just now, nothing—Dorothea and I have been practicing mage-song, and Neith’s been listening, so she owes me, rather, at the moment.”

Claude was unmoved. “And the invocation?” 

Alva snorted. “Less than an hour, and Neith just looking, without using her powers? I’ll be fine.”

Grudgingly, Claude accepted this. Jeralt, who had been watching his daughter have a whispered argument with empty air, asked, “Emrys?”

Before Emrys could reply, Fleche re-entered, leading Edelgard and Seteth. Edelgard looked vaguely uneasy, watching Emrys with some trepidation, while Seteth looked like he was experiencing a great many contradictory emotions that were dueling for primacy.

“Ah, excellent,” said Alva, spotting the new arrivals. “Now, Fleche, how would you like to learn about invoking spirits?”

Edelgard squawked. “Alva, what—you’re still recovering!”

Seteth just sputtered. Jeralt looked like he wanted to bury his face in his hands, and Fleche’s entire face lit up. “Wait, _really?_ ” Then, suddenly suspicious, she asked, “are you sure you’re well enough for this?”

Alva laughed. Claude, torn between amusement and anxiety, made a “see?! What did I just say?” gesture at Fleche, and Alva rolled her eyes. “Okay, even if I don’t call Neith, the first step of re-setting the binding between Sothis and Emrys is for Emrys to invoke Sothis properly.”

Seteth cleared his throat, awkwardly. “Perhaps we should take this inside?”

Alva acquiesced to this, and everyone retreated indoors, to the apartments that had belonged to Archbishop Rhea. Edelgard and Seteth were both objecting to the indiscretion of Alva mentioning Sothis and Neith in front of Fleche, and Alva cut them both off by turning to Fleche and telling her, very seriously, “Alright, Fleche, as your liege, I am hereby specifically informing you that any information I give you about spirits, but especially Neith and Sothis, is top secret, and falls under the ‘do not betray me’ command. Okay?”

Everyone in the room (except Jeralt, Claude noticed) choked at that. Finally, Edelgard managed to get out, “As her _liege?_ ”

Alva turned the same this-is-obvious-why-are-you-so-confused-by-it look that Claude was so familiar with on her sister, for once. “Yes? Look, you wanted me to pick a retainer, I told you I had picked her, and she agreed?”

“But—her _liege?_ ” stammered Edelgard, and from the look on Jeralt’s face, Claude suddenly knew what was coming.

“I bound her to my service, properly, of course. Not as dramatically as Jeralt, but if I was going to have someone sworn to my service, I wanted to do it right,” Alva said, slowly, as if she was explaining something very simple to a particularly dim student, and didn’t quite understand what part of it they didn’t understand.

Seteth looked deeply confused, and also mildly appalled. “I’m sorry, _what_ are you talking about?” He demanded.

Alva turned to him. “Right, you don’t know. I’m part fae, and when Monica stabbed Jeralt, I saved him by binding him to my service; bread and salt, made by my own hand, and his true name, willingly given.”

Seteth’s face at that particular revelation was a study. Not giving him a chance to frame any of the dozen questions Claude could see taking shape behind his lips, Emrys asked, “When exactly did you bind Fleche? And how? You said last time that it was dumb luck that it worked in the first place, that you couldn’t do it again?”

Claude, who had never actually been informed how, exactly, Alva had saved Jeralt, kept quiet, letting other people ask the questions to get the information he wanted.

“The night after Claude arrived,” admitted Alva, “And I didn’t do it the way I bound Jeralt, that was a much stronger binding. But she said she wanted the permanent position, and so I told her what I was, and she gave me oaths of fealty, and I swore her oaths of protection, so I’m her liege. She’ll keep our secrets.”

“Next time,” Edelgard gritted out, “ _tell_ me when you do something like that, Alva.”

“ _Binding Oaths,”_ muttered Seteth, viciously, “of _course_.”

“So…Who are Neith and Sothis?” asked Fleche, pertly.

Alva giggled. “Remember how I joked about making a deal with a devil? Neith’s my devil. More accurately, she’s a greater spirit—remember the story I told you the other evening, about the man who made a bargain with the river-spirit?”

Fleche nodded, and Claude made a mental note to ask Alva to tell him that story some time, because he had no idea what she was talking about.

“Well,” Alva continued, “When I came into my faerie powers, I got a bit lost, and Neith—she’s the spirit in question—found me wandering in the space between worlds. I made a bargain with her, in exchange for her helping me find my way back. We’re bound by that contract, and we help each other, sometimes. Okay?”

“Neith is a nice spirit?” Asked Fleche, looking a little uneasy.

“Insofar as any spirit can be called ‘nice,’” said Alva, wryly. Seeing that this wasn’t the most reassuring thing she could have said, she added, “and also I was very careful in my bargain with her, so she can’t hurt me, and since I’m your liege, she can’t hurt you, either.”

“And Sothis?” asked Fleche, still not looking entirely convinced.

“Sothis is the name of the goddess, Fleche. When Emrys, here, was a baby, Rhea did something really awful to try and use her as a vessel to resurrect the goddess, but she did it wrong, and it didn’t work properly, so Emrys just has a bit of her stuck in her head. We want to fix that.”

Now Fleche looked like she didn’t know whether to be impressed or alarmed. “She’s got the _goddess_ in her _head?”_

“More or less,” agreed Alva.

Emrys cut in. “Can we get back to the bit where I apparently need to invoke her?”

Alva looked up, startled. “Ah, right. Okay, so at the moment, Sothis isn’t really _here_ —she’s kind of piggybacked onto you, if anything. In order to make a deal, you both need to be present, rather than communicating through the preexisting binding, ideally. You could, I suppose, do it in whatever mental space you inhabit together in your head—”

“The holy tomb?” asked Emrys, and Alva paused. “Excuse me?” she asked, somewhat baffled.

“The stone chamber with the throne,” explained Emrys, helpfully, “it’s the Holy Tomb. I recognized it when Rhea took us there.”

There was a pause as everyone processed that piece of information. Seteth, in particular, looked like he was about to have fits, so Claude caught his eye and gave him a sympathetic look.

“…Good to know,” said Alva, finally. “Anyway, the point is that if you want my and/or Neith’s help, you need to do it here, and for that you need to invoke Sothis. Also, if you’re going to be contracted with a spirit, it’s generally a good idea to know how to invoke her.”

Emrys looked bemused. “But…she’s right here. I can see her now,” she added, gesturing at an empty spot to her left.

Alva sighed. “Yes, but that’s because she’s sharing your mental space; it’s like how I can hear Neith. You can only see her because of the bond. If you summon her, she’ll be visible without the bond, and that will make it easier to rework the binding, because she won’t be essentially _inside_ it.”

Once Emrys nodded her understanding, Alva cleared the floor, got out her chalk, and started tracing a large circle. As she did, she continued explaining, in a matter-of-fact voice, “Now, the first thing you need to understand about invocations is that what you’re essentially doing is creating a localized weak spot in the fabric of reality, to allow something to come through; fundamentally, a summoning circle is a _gateway._ So it’s very, very important to be careful, since a malicious spirit could take advantage of the opening—which is why the outermost ring of symbols is the spiritual rampart, which prevents any spirit other than the one you’re calling from noticing the disturbance, and also prevents any spirit who comes from leaving the circle—it clearly defines the space. Inside that, you have the stabilization ring, which is critical for the safety of both you and the spirit.” As she continued, she drew out her markings, describing as she went what each symbol was and its purpose, how they worked together, explaining about anchors, beacons, stabilizers, resonances, and all the minutiae and details of how to call up a spirit. Finally, she had a completed circle drawn on the floor.

“If you were to activate this as it is now,” she said, “it would just be a big ‘come here, spirits, someone wants to talk to you!” sign, and anything that happened to be in the area could answer. That’s bad. So, what you do is, you write who or what you want in the middle, there, before you activate it. If you don’t know the specific spirit you want, you can use a descriptor—if you wanted to talk to the spirit of a forest, for example, you could draw this in the middle of the forest in question, and then draw the sigils for ‘forest’ and ‘ruler’, the call would go to the nearest spirit that fulfilled that description, and you’d get the king of the forest—or the queen, if the forest spirit is female. Or you could just draw ‘tree’, and you’d probably get the nearest dryad, that sort of thing. I don’t recommend doing this in a graveyard, under any circumstances. A spirit isn’t necessarily obliged to answer you, especially not a greater spirit; depending on how much power you use, you might be able to compel a lesser spirit to answer, but it’s typically a bad idea to try to coerce a spirit of any description. Generally, though, the spirit would just get a nudge, and know someone was calling it, but it would be up to the spirit whether or not to respond. It takes a _lot_ of power to invoke a spirit against its will. For a greater spirit, like Neith or Sothis, if you don’t have a pre-existing link with them, it takes a huge amount of power just to get their attention, let alone to create a gateway large enough for them to answer, so I don’t recommend trying it. In this case, though, you want Sothis, and you have a link with Sothis, and we know her crest, so what you’re going to want to do is carefully cut yourself, and then draw the crest of Flames in your blood in the center. Then, being careful not to bleed anywhere else on the circle, you focus as hard as you can on Sothis, and say, ‘I call to thee, Sothis.’ Once you’ve made your own bargain with her, you can call her by that contract, but for now, just say, ‘I call to thee, Sothis.’”

Emrys obediently followed the instructions, and when the flash of light that followed on her final word faded, there were two figures in the center of the circle.

* * *

Seteth had known, intellectually, that Sothis was much-reduced, and without her memories, but he still hadn’t been prepared for the figure that appeared in the summoning circle. He remembered what Sothis had looked like, in life, and she’d been a woman grown, not this dainty child—but at the same time, the face was recognizably hers, as was the crown and the rest of the regalia. He couldn’t help making a strange, punched-out sound at the sight of her, and he couldn’t quite suppress the pang of hurt that he felt when it made her glance at him, and he saw no recognition whatsoever in her face.

Sothis addressed Alva. “This feels entirely peculiar. I don’t know that I like it. I demand you summon Neith, little fae-child, so that we can get this over with.”

Alva, Seteth noted with vague hysteria, was totally unimpressed by the imperious tone, and just raised an eyebrow, answering calmly, “If you like, though it will take me a few minutes to draw the circle. Have you two decided what the terms of the bargain between you will be?”

Sothis looked indignant. “I am a _goddess._ What can anyone possibly offer _me?_ ”

Emrys, looking almost long-suffering, offered, “the ability to experience the world, at least second-hand, through me?”

As the pair of them continued to bicker good-naturedly, with Alva occasionally chiming in with a suggestion of a potential term of barter, Seteth silently watched Alva trace out a similar circle. Edelgard looked vaguely appalled, and Seteth supposed that that was only to be expected, under the circumstances. Jeralt looked torn between fascination and horror, which was also understandable, and Fleche looked like she still hadn’t decided whether to be worried or thrilled. Claude, however, seemed to have been turning something over in his head for a while, and he finally spoke up, asking, “So, if the weak spot is so localized, and the spirit can’t get out of the circle, how’d you manage to set Neith on Rhea during the battle?”

Alva paused in her drawing, then continued, keeping her eyes fixed on the patterns she was tracing. Quietly, she admitted, “That was a different kind of invocation. Rather than making a localized weak spot, where Neith could come through, I called Neith up through _me,_ not the circle, so she couldn’t use her full senses, but she could be seen and heard by everyone else, and could wander farther away—I became the anchor, and we sort of projected her out. She wasn’t really _there,_ properly, it was one part faerie glamour and one part astral projection, with her in control. That’s why it was so draining.”

…Seteth hadn’t realized that Alva had been _channeling a greater spirit,_ good god, that was—“You _channeled_ a greater spirit? For _hours?_ But that’s extremely dangerous, you could have burned yourself out!” he exclaimed, before he could think better of it.

“Not as dangerous as it sounds,” corrected Alva, over the rising hubbub of alarmed questions. “No, El, really, I promise—due to the nature of our bond, it really _wasn’t_ as dangerous as all that, though I admit I rather underestimated how much more draining it would be. I was not in any real danger, and if I had been, Neith would have known, and dispelled herself. Unless it came down to burning myself out or letting you die, I wasn’t going to burn myself out.”

Seteth felt somewhat sick, and was abruptly very grateful that he and Indech had arrived in time. Finally, Alva finished drawing the second circle of invocation, pulled out a small silver dagger and cut her arm, drew the final sigil in the center, sealed the cut on her arm with a quick burst of healing magic, and placed her hand on the ground just in front of the bloody crest. In a clear, carrying voice, she recited, “By right of the covenant that binds us, Neith, I call to thee.”

Immediately, a ball of light coalesced above the center of the circle, resolving itself into a much-less ostentatiously garbed version of the spirit Seteth had seen berating Rhea. Somewhat belatedly, it occurred to Seteth that it might not be a great idea for him to be here for this, since the chances of her failing to notice the crest stone in his breast and, having noticed it, realize what it meant, were slim to none.

At least for the moment, however, Neith appeared to be preoccupied with the other apparition in the room. She looked her up and down in an assessing manner, and commented, “So, you’re this ‘Sothis’ that I’ve heard so much about. You’ve recovered rather nicely, I must say.”

Sothis, for her part, looked almost intimidated. She puffed herself up, saying, “Yes, I am. And you’re the little fae’s patron?”

Neith’s eyes flashed a warning, as she snapped, “Do be careful how you refer to my _chosen,_ lest I take offense.”

Before the situation could devolve any further, Alva interrupted. “Yes, yes, you’re both very impressive, I’m sure. Neith, I _am_ a little fae, it’s not insulting, and ‘patron’ is one of the politer descriptors that could be applied to you, so let it go. Now, Neith, how about you look at the binding, so that we can get to the re-working of the bargain part of the itinerary?”

_She calls this creature her_ devil, Seteth reminded himself, giddily. _I don’t think there’s anything_ little _about her._

Fortunately, Neith acquiesced to Alva’s command, and stepped forward, carefully looking over both Emrys and Sothis. After a moment, she asked Emrys, sharply, “what’s that thing in your chest? I didn’t notice it last time, because Sothis was in it, but there’s a big power-anchor sitting on top of your heart, and that doesn’t look healthy.”

Emrys looked baffled. “Thing in my chest? I don’t know anything about that.”

Unfortunately, Seteth did. “I expect that’s a crest stone,” he admitted. “Rhea said that she implanted it in Emrys’s chest when she was born. She also said Emrys was stillborn, though, so I don’t know…”

As Seteth had expected, his admission resulted in Neith turning her gimlet stare on him, and after a moment, her eyes widened. “You’ve got one, too! Only yours is integrated much better—a vessel and reservoir, not an anchor.”

And now Edelgard and Jeralt were both staring at him suspiciously, while Fleche and Alva just looked inquisitive, and Claude made a sympathetic face at him over their heads.

Cornered, Seteth admitted, “There might be…things about myself I have not been wholly truthful about. But the full explanation would be rather time-consuming, so perhaps we can just leave it for a time when Alva and Emrys aren’t actively supporting invocations?”

“I support that idea,” said Alva, firmly. Edelgard didn’t look pleased, but she acquiesced, concerned about the health of her sister and teacher.

Neith negated the idea strongly, however. “At the very least, I need a working explanation of what a ‘crest stone’ is, and what purpose it serves, since it seems rather central to the binding.”

That, sadly, was an argument with too much weight to be disregarded, so Seteth begrudgingly gave them a bare-bones outline of what a crest stone was, and the purpose it served. Fortunately, he was only a couple of sentences into his explanation when Neith gave a sudden _Oh!_ Of comprehension, and cut him off. “I see! That makes much more sense.” Turning to Emrys and Sothis, she said, “So the power is going to have to remain shared between you, since it’s actually seated in the crest stone, which is in your chest, Emrys. We can’t remove it safely while Rhea’s alive, not without having her True Name—” she paused, turning to Seteth, and asked, “I don’t suppose you happen to know what her True Name is?”

Seteth shook his head. “Sorry, no.”

“It’s not Seiros?” asked Claude, startled.

“No, that’s a name she took after the Red Canyon Massacre,” admitted Seteth. When everyone looked ready to ask him a whole barrage of other questions about that tidbit, Emrys spoke over them. “ _One thing at a time._ Seteth’s secrets, the ones not immediately relevant, can wait until after we’ve finished with this.”

Alva backed her up, saying firmly, “ _Later._ We can interrogate Seteth, _nicely,_ once we’ve figured out how to deal with the binding on Emrys.”

Eventually, they managed to come to an agreement whereby the new bargain was settled, the terms being that Emrys had access to Sothis’s powers, while Sothis got ‘head-space’ and the ability to share experiences with Emrys—she tried to hide how thrilled she was to actually get sensory perceptions other than sight and sound back, but only sort of succeeded. It wasn’t that different from the working arrangement they’d had before, but formalizing it meant that, as Neith put it, “they wouldn’t be trying to exist in the same space anymore,” so the risk of one of them displacing the other entirely was removed. When asked about Sothis’s memories, Neith shrugged. “It depends. From what I can tell, Rhea repeatedly tried to force you into a living body with a soul, and of course without the living sacrifice to cement the binding, all that did was damage you; that damage appears to be healing, now, but until it does, I can’t say whether you’ll ever be able to recover what was lost—especially since I have no way of knowing how much you lost to that damage, and how much you lost to the fact that the crest stone was never intended to hold your entire soul and memory. From what he says about the purpose of crest stones—“ and here Neith nodded at Seteth, who grimaced, “—they were intended to contain _power,_ not consciousness, but it can be tricky to pour one’s power into a thing without also pouring one’s soul.”

One thing Neith was able to do was confirm that her adjustments to the original binding had removed the parasitic elements, so with a final tweak, she was able to start Emrys’s heart beating on its own. “The emotional suppression should continue to wear off gradually,” she explained. “I could remove it entirely now, but getting rid of it all at once would probably be rather unpleasant, and I’m assuming you’d rather not have the worst mood swings in the history of ever as you get used to having moods in the first place.”

And then they left, and Seteth was saved from immediately having to fulfil his promise and finish his explanations by the fact that, while Alva, as she predicted, was just a bit tired, Emrys, who had never performed an invocation before, and whose bond with Sothis had been significantly changed besides, collapsed in exhaustion, and slept for three hours. After that, however, he had no more excuses, and so for the second time in as many days, he told the story of his people, and of Nemesis, and of the four saints. Edelgard took it surprisingly well, all things considered; she wasn’t best pleased about it, but she seemed to place their inhumanity in the same category as Alva’s, which was a blessing. (Seteth hated to think about how she might have reacted to the revelation if she hadn’t had Alva and Emrys on her side. Alva in particular—she owned her fae heritage, unashamed and unbothered, without thinking herself any less or more than other people, just different. It was a mindset that more people could have stood to take.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this is a chapter that basically just happened, and rather ran away with me. Emrys heard 'Sothis is awake' and just INSISTED. I didn't plan for Alva to explain spirit-invocation to anyone, but then she just started doing it, and as a bonus we get the explanation as to why the invocation Alva performed for the battle was so much more draining, and why Neith didn't take one look at Rhea and start yelling about some of her other unfortunate activities, or recognize Seteth, Flayn and Indech were all the same Type Of Thing as Rhea is. Seteth is going to tell Indech about actually meeting Neith, and he is going to be rather disappointed that he didn't get to talk to her, but there's no realistic way to introduce them without Alva doing an invocation in the open, which is a bad idea in general. Oh well! 
> 
> (I should note that Emrys is more drained than Alva is by the invocation partly because Alva, being part fae, is already somewhat 'other', so it's easier for her to weaken the walls between worlds than it would be for a normal person. Sothis has dominion over time, she's not a world-walker, so Emrys having Sothis's power helps less with that than you'd think. Also, Alva calls Neith by the _covenant that binds them_ , whereas before this the bond between Emrys and Sothis wasn't strong enough to support that sort of thing. She will get better at it, though.) 
> 
> Does anyone have any requests, while I try to figure out how to handle the Agarthans and Dimitri and so on? I'm considering adding another Crest Of Blaiddyd character, a minor (in both senses of the word) OC who is Dimitri's cousin, his uncle's kid, because, clearly, the situation in Faerghus wasn't complicated enough. I'm putting it up to a vote, so please vote in the comments on which option you are in favor of:  
>  **Option A: Rufus died childless (or, at any rate, none of his kids show up)  
>  Option B (Version 1): Rufus had a son  
> Option B (Version 2): Rufus had a daughter.  
> Option C (V1/V2): Rufus didn't sire any crest-bearing children, but a crest-less kid of his does show up.**  
> ...and please feel free to tell me any other thoughts you might have on this, in general, including permutations. (Maybe there were twins, and one has a crest and one doesn't! maybe there's a distant cousin who has the crest of Blaiddyd! Go wild!) (For reference, I'm imagining this kid as being illegitimate, and less than 10 years old. Dimitri probably doesn't know about the kid's existence.)  
>  **Edit: The potential child in question is unlikely to impact the plot at all until at least chapter 23, so voting will remain open until chapter 22 goes up! (I have a good chunk of it written, but it's fighting me. I'm aiming to have it up by next monday at the latest.)**


	22. Honesty

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> NOTE TO ANY RETURNING READERS: I have made some significant alterations to the last few chapters, including adding ~1,500 words to the end of Chapter 18, Aftermath, and making some modifications to the following few chapters. So you should go back and re-read those before you continue!
> 
> Who wanted to see more Neith/Sothis interaction? Nobody? Well, sorry, but we're starting with that. Then I get fed up with trying to remember who knows what secret, and so Alva insists on confiding in the other students. Huzzah!

As Seteth—whose name was not Seteth, but who preferred not to be called by his true name, a request which Neith was perfectly willing to honor—finished his explanation of his origins, and as much as he knew of the truth of the church of Seiros, Neith contemplated the spirit that was, evidently, all that remained of his mother. Neith had not been entirely sure what to expect of this fragmentary spirit, who had offered to share her power without asking anything in return, who had attempted to sacrifice herself, that her vessel might live, but she had not been favorably impressed by their first true meeting. _Ignorant and arrogant, both,_ she thought, _which is an unfortunate combination._ She was not, however, mean-spirited; for all her ostensible age, in practical terms, she was really quite young. From the descriptions of what she had been like before she was so damaged, Neith rather suspected that she’d always been rather autocratic, but what mattered was not what she had been, but what she was now. She remembered a conversation that Alva had with Dorothea, when she first started teaching her to put magic in her singing, about Ferdinand; Dorothea said that he claimed his treatment of her as a little girl was a misunderstanding, that he had thought she was a nymph and ran away, only to return later and find her gone. Alva had pointed out that, whether or not the story was true, what he had been and done as a small boy didn’t have to reflect what he believed and was now—that people changed, and she should watch the way he treated the poor and unfortunate now, and judge him as he was, not as he had once been. It was good advice, Neith thought. Reduced as she was, Sothis was still too powerful to be left to her own devices; inexperienced as she was, she could do a great deal of harm, even with the best of intentions. To approach her before her chosen would have been folly, but she could do so later. Sothis herself had asked for her help with the bond, not Alva, so it was Sothis who owed the debt; Alva might have constrained her severely with her conditions on their bargain, but a debt was a debt, and she’d helped reform the link connecting Sothis and Emrys, so once Alva was safely asleep (and she’d ensured, with a quick brush of her powers, that Alva would have no nightmares this night), she followed the ghostly thread of that debt and connection to the not-place where Sothis sat, petulantly, on a rather overdramatic throne. This not-place was unreal itself, so with a thought, Neith made herself solid enough that her footsteps, as she approached the throne, were clearly audible.

Sothis’s head snapped up and she turned, eyes widening as she saw her visitor. “You!” she exclaimed, scrambling to her feet. “What are you doing here?!”

Neith ignored the question. Instead, she asked, “Do you keep this place a ridiculous throne room on purpose, or do you not know how to change it?”

Sothis bristled. “I am a _goddess!_ Where else should I be, but on my throne?”

“Anywhere, really. And you might have been a goddess, once, but now you’re just a remnant, and this place is both boring and depressing. So, I repeat: do you keep it like this because it suits your pride, or do you not know how to change it?”

Sothis’s eyes narrowed. “I’ll tell you the answer, if you tell me how you got here.”

Neith sighed. “Fine. I’m a world-walker, and you owe me a debt, for my aid with your binding—I followed the thread of that, to find you here.”

Sothis looked puzzled. “I owe you a debt? But the fae-child said that you owed her, that you wanted nothing in exchange for looking at the binding again?”

“Ah, but that was for looking at the binding, at _her_ request; _you_ were the one to demand my aid in the actual re-working of the binding, so that debt is _yours._ ”

Sothis hesitated, then nodded. Sullenly, she said, “Fine. To answer your earlier question, I didn’t know that this place could be changed in the first place.”

Neith snorted. “This place is a dream, a projection—if it’s the holy tomb, then I suppose it is so because it is where Rhea thought you ought to be; but you are here, not she, so you can reshape it as you wish. If you like, I can teach you a few things.” Neith saw the way Sothis bristled, at that, and added hurriedly, “no debt, this time—it is dangerous to everyone that you remain ignorant.”

Sothis subsided, giving Neith a thoughtful look. Finally, she acquiesced. “Very well. You may teach me—but only if you don’t tell the little fae-child!”

Neith forced herself to smile, and said, “Very well. First lesson: Alva is my _Chosen,_ and for another spirit to refuse to acknowledge my claim on her is _extremely rude._ So is questioning it, as you did before, when you asked if I was her _patron._ Be told.”

Sothis stared. “So…what should I call her? ‘Neith’s little fae’?”

Neith’s smile eased a trifle, and she said, “That would be acceptable.”

Suddenly, Sothis frowned. “What do you call Emrys, then?”

Neith raised a startled eyebrow. “Well, before the binding was fixed, I called her ‘little bafflement,’ and I’ve been known to refer to her as ‘Sothis’s enigma,’ and ‘the little vessel,’ though that last isn’t strictly accurate anymore. Now, she’d probably be your _bonded,_ though neither _avatar_ nor _vessel_ are inaccurate enough to be problematic. You’ll have to decide what you want to name her—personally, I think I’d recommend _partner,_ as being a trifle less loaded than _avatar_ and _vessel,_ if you don’t like ‘bonded’.”

Sothis gave Neith an odd look. “Does it truly matter so much, what I name her?”

Neith shut her eyes, pushing down the instinctive irritation at the absurd question. “Of _course_ it matters, it will define the bond between you! I just didn’t mention it earlier, because I didn’t want to have this conversation in front of everybody!”

“Why can’t she be my Chosen, like Alva is yours?”

Neith’s grip on her temper slipped for a moment, and she snapped, “Because _you did not choose her,_ you fool!” Rubbing her temples, Neith changed the subject. “We can return to this topic when we’re no longer in this ridiculous throne room. Why not a library, to start with?”

Grumbling, Sothis gave in, and let Neith talk her through changing her mindscape from the ridiculously pretentious throne room into a comfortable library, complete with big, comfortable couches and tables. Once that was done, Neith was in a much better mood, and consented to explain the distinction between a bonded, an avatar, and a vessel. (She still refused to explain exactly what it meant, that she’d named Alva her Chosen, on the grounds that it wasn’t relevant to Sothis’s decision on what to call Emrys.) Eventually, Sothis decided on ‘bonded,’ though she liked the idea of calling Emrys her _partner._ That settled, they moved on to other things that Neith felt strongly that Sothis Ought To Know, until Neith felt the tell-tale signs of her little Chosen beginning to stir, and bid Sothis farewell, hastening back just in time to hear Alva sing a funny little song about honeybees while she got dressed.

* * *

Alva distracts herself from her futile frustration at the Faerghus situation, and her sister’s building desperation as her messages to ‘Lord Arundel’ fail to evince any particular response, and her calls for a trial for Dimitri go unanswered, despite her arguments that the people of Faerghus will never accept any other ruler unless given real proof of Dimitri’s guilt, by focusing all her energy on the puzzle of how to deal with the Death Knight. Fleche, however, persisted in scolding her for overexerting herself (she was _fine_ now, really—but Fleche didn’t believe her) and eventually Alva gave in and asked her to fetch Edelgard, Hubert and Seteth. When they arrived, Alva told them point blank, “I need help with my research on how to deal with the nightwalkers and the Death Knight. I can’t do this myself, El, at least not anything like fast enough, and we need to know—so I want to tell the others.”

There was a minor furore. Alva waited for them to run out of breath, then calmly insisted. “Look, if nothing else, I can’t keep track of who knows what secret, not anymore. Sooner or later it’s going to be obvious to everyone that we’re keeping secrets, and if we don’t give people something, they’ll draw their own conclusions or go looking or distrust us, none of which is helpful. And some of the information is dangerous, but I can’t help thinking that ignorance is more so. At the very least, we should tell the other Black Eagle students, but frankly I think all the students who took our side and _stayed_ with us deserve to know.”

Eventually, grudgingly, and on the condition that Alva swear everyone to secrecy, eventually even Hubert and Seteth gave in, and they assembled everyone who was still in the monastery in the cardinal’s room to officially pool information.

There was a minor hiccup, before they even got to the swearing-to-secrecy portion of the plan, when Ferdinand took the revelation that Alva was part-fae _spectacularly_ badly. He visibly quailed, giving her a terrified look and blurting out “please don’t curse me!” in a rather frantic voice, to her baffled consternation.

“Have you done anything to merit cursing, lately?” Alva asked, eyeing him speculatively.

“I swear I didn’t know, I’m so sorry, I promise I won’t do it again—”

At that point, Fleche, Dorothea and Edelgard were all bristling, while Alva kind of blinked in confusion. “…Ferdinand, are you afraid of elves?” she asked, tentatively.

“If you mean _do I have a healthy appreciation for creatures who can spirit you away in the night with no warning, or kidnap children in the woods and not return them for a hundred years—”_

There was a somewhat confused commotion as several of the people present angrily started demanding who Ferdinand thought he was calling a _creature,_ but Alva just stared at Ferdinand with something like astonished joy. “Ferdinand, are you telling me that _someone taught you elf lore?_ Who?”

“My nurse--!” admitted Ferdinand, miserably. “She always said that I shouldn’t sing in public, or dance, or wear my finest clothes on ordinary occasions, or I’d catch the interest of the elves, and they’d steal me, and the stories she told--!”

Alva couldn’t help it. She burst out laughing, helplessly, tears running down her face. “Oh, my lord. Don’t worry, Ferdinand, I’m not a true fae, and I’m the same person I’ve always been. I appreciate meeting someone else with a healthy respect for spirits and fae, however.”

Ferdinand relaxed slightly, though he still looked somewhat nervous. “So…you’re not mad that I gave you a scarf, for the solstice celebration?”

At that, Alva relapsed into laughter. When she managed to get control of herself again, she wiped the tears from her eyes, saying, “No, Ferdinand, I am not, though I appreciate your consideration. I appreciated the scarf very much, it’s lovely and warm. I’m not that type of fae. I’m the words-and-bargains-and-debts-and-singing kind, and you needn’t worry about offending me by _giving me gifts of clothes,_ that’s _brownies,_ you ridiculous man. Anyway, we can discuss the ramifications of my faerie blood later, the _point is_ that if you swear an oath to me, you won’t be able to break it, so before we tell you all the things we haven’t been telling you, we need you to promise not to tell anyone, unless we give you permission!”

That brought Ferdinand up short. “…Sorry, what?” he asked, sounding bewildered now, rather than alarmed.

“I’m fae enough to hold someone to their sworn word,” repeated Alva, calmly. “So, this meeting is to inform you that anyone who is willing to swear me a binding oath not to betray us, we’ll tell you what we’ve been keeping dark.”

That produced a certain amount of confused exclamations from everyone who hadn’t been aware what the point of this meeting was, since they’d just been told that it was important and mandatory. Eventually, Ferdinand spoke over all the raised voices, insisting, “Speaking as one of those who chose to follow Emperor Edelgard without being privy to any of these secrets, I would personally _really_ like to know at least the basics, because fighting blind is awful, and I am _perfectly_ willing to swear not to betray them, since I wasn’t planning to do that _anyway!_ Also, I would really appreciate having some warning that something I might do could be dangerous, and why, so that I don’t accidentally endanger anybody, _especially_ if elves are going to be involved.”

That made the difference, and everyone who had been objecting settled down, the oath was sworn, and the explanations began. There was a certain amount of shouting, which Alva had expected. There was also a certain amount of crying, which she had not expected, but in retrospect, probably should have. When they got to the part of the explanation that involved the nightwalkers not being human and possibly being able to possess people, they had to break for a few minutes while Lysithea had hysterics, because they hadn’t accounted for her crippling fear of ghosts, and she was already on edge after the confirmation of what Solon’s people had done, exactly, to Edelgard and her siblings, and why, and apparently Emrys and Edelgard had had to tell her a certain amount about spirits after the whole ‘Ghostly Neith appearing during the battle’ episode triggered all of her ghost-terrors. Marianne, when Seteth haltingly explained the source of demonic beasts, quietly broke down, and was eventually coaxed into admitting that she had the crest of Maurice, and when she related the story of what became of Maurice, Seteth’s face went dark, and he started to let loose a stream of what was presumably invective, based on Flayn’s expression, in a tongue none of them understood. When he finished, he reassured Marianne that there was nothing wrong with her, or her crest, and that what had happened to Maurice was a result of him drawing too much power from the crest stone in his weapon, and that Rhea had _lied_ when she said that no one had been taken over, and there was a protracted rant that was derailed by a horrified Sylvain asking if Seteth wanted the Lance of Ruin back, because Sylvain was _entirely_ okay with returning a _corpse-weapon_ to the nearest relative of the corpse, even if it _didn’t_ carry with it a risk of _turning into a giant ravening beast_ if he overused it. At that point, Emrys had to use her professor-voice to insist that any questions about what to do with the crest stone weapons could wait until they finished their explanations! (Emrys’s Professor Voice was a thing of wonder, and every student present had been trained to respond to it, instantly.)

They ended with Alva’s explanation of the problems of the nightwalkers and the Death Knight, and Alva was very glad to be able to firmly negate the possibility of the Death Knight being a nightwalker-style parasite, because Dorothea connected those dots _extremely_ quickly. (She also had to explain that no, Neith and Sothis were not parasitic spirits trying to take her and Emrys over, really, though she still refused to tell anyone the terms of her bargain.) In the end, Linhardt, Dorothea, Petra, Constance and Annette all volunteered to help Alva research how to handle the Death Knight situation.

In the end, it was Petra who came up with a potential solution to the Death Knight problem, when she asked Alva why, if the Death Knight was simply the result of mental trauma, she did not simply heal him as she had healed Prince Dimitri?

Alva blinked at Petra. “What do you mean, the way I healed Prince Dimitri?”

“When he was being in the madness of desiring blood, and you stopped him by the singing? Dorothea was calling it _The Improbable Dream?_ It was a song of healing, yes?”

Alva opened her mouth to deny that it had been anything of the sort, then paused. After a moment, she asked, “Petra, when you say a ‘song of healing,’ what do you mean?”

Petra looked slightly flustered. “It is perhaps not the term I should be using? But you are being a—I am not knowing the word, a _seanchaí_? One who is knowing of the old tales and speaking to spirits? And who is singing songs of power?”

…Okay, yes, that was as good a description of Alva as any, she had to admit. “I mean, I suppose so—but I don’t know about healing, I was just trying to get Dimitri to _listen,_ and I don’t know…” she trailed off, as Petra was shaking her head emphatically.

“No, it is being—it is being partly a question of the song, but it is mostly being a thing of the singer, a seanchaí is having the gift of soul-song, to be changing the world with music? In the forest, when the professor was being lost, that was also being soul-singing? It was being the most powerful I have ever heard, it was being a song of _power._ ”

Alva hesitated. “Petra, is _Dorothea_ also a—a _seanchaí_? What she’s been learning to do, is that also—soul-song?”

“Of course that is also being soul-singing, and Dorothea will be becoming a great _seanchaí_ , is that not why you are being teaching her?”

Alva processed that. “Petra, Adrestia has no equivalent tradition to your— _seanchaí_. If what Dorothea is doing is soul-singing, then what I did in the sealed forest isn’t, at least not quite; remember, I said I was part fae? The singing is part of that.” From the look on Petra’s face, she didn’t think she’d managed to clarify this, at all. Right, Petra might not have fully understood the whole ‘elves’ thing, earlier. What had been the term Petra had used, when they’d been discussing the ballad of Tam Lin? Ah, yes—“One of my mother’s ancestors was an elf, like one of your Fair Folk _,_ who fell in love with a mortal singer. So, I’m part-fae.”

As soon as she’d said _Fair Folk,_ Petra’s face had been illuminated with delighted comprehension, and Alva relaxed. Good, that had worked.

Then Petra opened her mouth, and everything went sideways again, as she exclaimed, “You are being _bean sídhe?_ A—a lady of the Fair Folk?”

“I mean, I’m mortal, I age and die like anyone else, but—yes?”

“Then you are _definitely_ being powerful enough to be curing mind-wounds by singing songs of healing!” And then Petra poured out a story Alva had never heard before, of a swan-maiden whose song could induce slumber, or heal the sick, or cure the mad, and she was fascinated. When Petra finished, Alva sat back, thoughtful. “Hold on, I think I need to ask Neith about this,” she said, and, shutting her eyes, located the part of her mind that represented her link with Neith. _Neith?_ _Are you listening?_

 _**I am listening,**_ replied Neith, amused. **_It’s not a bad idea, but I don’t think you could cure the mad without using a true Song of Power, and I didn’t know you knew any. What’s this about you singing one when Sothis’s bonded was lost?_**

_You remember, Emrys mentioned it when she told you about the whole ‘merging with Sothis’ thing, Solon banished her and I sang the song of the lost, to guide her back?_

 _**Show me,**_ sent Neith, insistent. So Alva frowned, screwed her eyes up in concentration, and called up her memory of that evening, and after a couple of false starts, she managed to send it down the link, to Neith. There was a pause, as Neith watched and listened to the memory playing out, before she spoke up. **_I am very sorry to have missed witnessing that in person,_** she said, and her mental voice was very soft. **_That was definitely a Song of Power. Wherever did you learn it?_**

 _My mother taught me,_ replied Alva, vaguely bemused. _She said it was one of the songs handed down in her family. I normally sing it in Adrestian, but the translation’s awkward, and I was pouring enough power into it that the language didn’t matter. It’s really a Song of Power?_

 _**Very much so,**_ confirmed Neith. **_And you’re right, I don’t expect that anyone listening noticed what language you were using. Were there others?_**

 _Yes, lots,_ sent Alva, amused. _There was a nursery rhyme, and a song about dreams, and a song about birds and the coming of spring…Part of my education in music and languages was translating most of them into Modern Adrestian. Would you know a song of power if you heard it, even if I didn’t put any particular power behind it?_

 _**If you were the singer? Definitely,**_ said Neith, emphatically. **_You still haven’t mastered singing without putting any enchantment behind it at all, for all your practice with your little protégé, and a song of power will pick up even the tiniest trace of magic._**

 _Good to know,_ sent back Alva, and opened her eyes, interrupting some sort of argument between Constance and Annette. “Alright, Neith confirms that the song of the lost is, in fact, a song of power, which I was not aware of. This raises the possibility that some of the other songs my mother taught me might also be songs of power, but I won’t know until I sing them for her. Which I should probably do, since that seems to be rather important information, going forward.”

“In that case, you should also teach us as many of them as possible,” added Dorothea, hopefully.

Alva laughed. “Fair enough! Fleche, would you go fetch me one of the blank musical notebooks the musical copyists use, and Ferdinand?”

“Why Ferdie?” asked Dorothea, baffled, as Fleche nodded and ran off.

“Because he’s the fastest and most accurate at copying and transcribing music,” explained Alva. “Also, he’s ridiculous and enthusiastic and mad, and I like all those things, and I’d rather him get used to the concept of me being part-elf not changing me sooner, rather than later.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The result of the vote: So, I have gotten over 200 hits since I posted the last chapter, and 5 people voted. The vote was pretty much unanimously in favor of a crest-bearing heir, with one vote for a boy, one vote for multiple children, one vote that didn't care about the gender, and two people who voted for a girl. So, a girl it is! The ramifications of this will start to play out in the next few chapters. 
> 
> It occurred to me that it was fairly unrealistic for Edelgard to be presented with Cornelia's coup as a fait accompli, so I went back and changed it so that she's deposed Dimitri on the grounds of his having committed murder, but there's a great deal of arguing about what to do, now, and a sort of succession crisis is looming. Fun times!
> 
> Also, I'd like to take this opportunity to express how infuriating I find it that the linguistic/cultural setup of Fodlan is deeply baffling to me. Like?? So, Dimitri Alexandre is clearly Russian (or at least Slavic), but Blaiddyd is welsh, and a lot of the place names are from Irish mythology, but the actual names of the characters are largely germanic or latinate, not celtic, and I just?? And then Petra! Of Brigid! Which is a name that fits in with all the other irish placenames, and her last name is irish, but her first name is greek, but apparently the culture and language of Brigid is distinct from the rest of Fodlan?? I just. IT MAKES NO SENSE ARGHHHH. 
> 
> So, I'm winging this. I'm running Brigid as Irish, though culturally I'm making them at least part viking, because I love the idea of Viking!Petra. Alva's mom is from Albinea, and the language spoken there (and the language of Alva's Songs of Power) is Old Welsh, and distinct from Petra's Gaelic. (On a happier note, I had so much fun writing Petra's imperfect language skills, she got worse as she got more flustered and it was so cute!) 
> 
> I'm slowly building a headcanon about what is up with the fae (which are not the same as the nabateans, that's important) and the language/culture that was in place before Sothis arrived, and we'll have to see how that plays out. 
> 
> I was torn about the Songs of Power thing, but in the end, I decided that I want to de-power Alva, a bit, so instead of her just being Super Magic, she inherited some Very Magical Songs from her mom, and wasn't aware of it. So, she's going to be teaching her songs of power to other people (though they won't be as effective at it as Alva, because Fae.) I've decided I want to actually address what existed before Sothis came to Fodlan, and Alva's songs of power are part of that. 
> 
> Oh, and I hope everyone else enjoyed Ferdinand being afraid of elves as much as I do.


	23. The Song of Calling

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which it turns out that singing songs of power has more ramifications than anyone predicted.

When Fleche returned with Ferdinand, and they explained what they needed of him, his first reaction was open bafflement. “But why do you need someone else to write them down?” he asked, startled. “Surely, especially with a song of power, it would be better for you to write them, without singing them? Won’t it draw attention?”

Alva looked, to Ferdinand’s astonishment, actually embarrassed. “Because I can’t read music,” she admitted, shamefaced. “I learned to sing them by ear, and I never did learn musical notation.”

Ferdinand stared. “ _You_ can’t read music?”

Dorothea gesticulated wildly. “Right?? That’s what I said!”

Ferdinand still wasn’t convinced. “But, Dorothea, I _know_ you can read music, and if she’s teaching you the songs anyway, why can’t you do it?”

“Because as wonderful as I am,” said Dorothea, dryly, “I am forced to admit that you write much more clearly and quickly than I do.”

That…okay, yes, that was a fair point. Still, Ferdinand didn’t exactly have that much free time at the moment, considering he’d started taking over his father’s responsibilities after his incarceration, and trying to sort out the mess he’d made of the Aegir estates was a headache and a half. (He was also willing to admit to himself, privately, that he was still a bit uncomfortable being around Alva when she was doing anything blatantly fae-ish. He was working on it! But, well. His nurse had told him stories about elves that sang in the woods to lure travelers to their doom, and there was a reason he’d been so scared when he first encountered Dorothea singing in the fountain, as a child.) In a last ditch effort to escape, he asked, “And Annette?”

Alva dashed his last faint hope of getting out of this by saying, calmly, “Annette’s our test subject. I’m going to teach Dorothea, since we’ve already been working on mage-song, and then we’re going to give the written version of the song to Annette, and have her learn from the scores, and see if that makes a difference.”

Ferdinand blinked. That was…actually a surprisingly scientific approach to this. “Did Linhardt come up with that?”

“Yes, and his point was a good one—if a song of power is effective in the hands of any singer, even one who hasn’t been taught to sing it properly by someone who knows what they’re doing, or has heard it sung, we are going to need to take some serious precautions with those scores.”

Ferdinand winced. Okay, yes, he could see that. “Fine. But I’ve got to finish going over the tax documents from last year’s agricultural tithe—I’m fairly certain that either the seneschal or the bailiff is dishonest, but I can’t tell which without more thorough checking.”

Alva nodded her understanding. “That’s fine; in fact, if you wanted to get Fleche to bring your papers here, she can help you go over them between songs.”

Ferdinand looked over at Fleche, in her little brown pigtails and brand-new tunic emblazoned with the von Hresvelg family coat of arms. He tried not to let his dubiety at the idea of a ten-year-old girl helping him go over financial accounts show on his face, but from her indignant expression, he wasn’t sure he had succeeded. Fleche puffed up like a little chipmunk, and in the same tone she’d used to take Hubert to task for not letting Alva rest enough, she exclaimed, “I’m _excellent_ at math! Honest!”

Jeralt, who was splitting his attention between keeping a watchful eye out for threats to his charge and whittling something that looked suspiciously like a duck, broke in then. “She is, actually. As far as I can tell, she was already doing half of Randolph’s administrative work when Alva hijacked her—and much better than he does it, too.”

Ferdinand paused. “Really?”

Jeralt snorted. “You should hear him sulk about all the reports he has to go through, now—I don’t think he realized how much of his work Fleche here had been doing for him until she stopped.”

Ferdinand eyed little Fleche with new respect. “Well, in that case, I suppose I could use another set of eyes.”

“Excellent! Then tell her where to find them, and while she is fetching them, we can do the song of the lost, which Neith has already confirmed is a song of power. Sound good?”

Ferdinand acquiesced. To his relief, Alva went slowly through the song of the lost, line by line, giving him plenty of time to record each line, first in Adrestian, and then the original (which Ferdinand did his best to transcribe phonetically, since it definitely wasn’t any language he knew.) Also, the strange harmonics and resonances that he hadn’t the faintest idea how to record were absent this time, presumably an artifact of the amount of power she’d poured into the song before—though it still made the back of his neck prickle slightly. It wasn’t a long song, but with how slowly they were going, Fleche still returned with his papers when they were only halfway through. They didn’t rush, however, and Fleche just took a seat and started to familiarize herself with the contents of the folder while she waited. By the time they had finished, Fleche had sorted the papers into several neat piles, and Ferdinand was only slightly surprised to see that she’d organized them by whose signature was appended, and was in the process of leafing through the piles, trying to find the discrepancy. When Ferdinand took a seat next to her, she looked up at him, frowning slightly. “You said it was the seneschal or the bailiff, right? But they handle very different things—I don’t see where the overlap is. What makes you think one of them is dishonest?”

“The employment records and the tax accounts don’t match,” explained Ferdinand. “If you look, there are several people who show up on the seneschal’s employment listings that don’t show up on the bailiff’s tax records, which means that either the seneschal is claiming wages for people who don’t exist, or the bailiff isn’t reporting all the taxes—either not collecting taxes from some people, possibly in exchange for a bribe, or he’s pocketing the taxes himself.”

Eyes widening in understanding, Fleche nodded, and together the two of them set to work checking the numbers and registries, while Dorothea worked on committing the song of the lost to memory and Alva quietly ran through all the songs her mother had taught her. About an hour later, Dorothea had reached the point of singing the song of the lost all the way through in the original, rather than the Adrestian translation, and Alva had just started singing a wistful song that sounded almost like an entreaty, when Ferdinand felt the back of his neck prickle. Fleche, too, seemed to detect something odd, and looked up, blinking, just in time for Alva to break off her song, exclaiming in a very different voice, “Well, hello there, little one, what are you doing here?”

Ferdinand froze, staring in horror as the wren perching on Alva’s outstretched hand turned into a tiny, dainty, semi-transparent figure that seemed to be made of air, hovering above Alva’s extended palm. It was lovely, and sexless, and perhaps six inches tall, wispy and faint but unmistakably there. Even Dorothea had paused in her singing, now, staring in fascination at the newcomer.

In a tiny, piping voice, the little fae answered Alva’s question with a rush of incomprehensible words, which Ferdinand guessed were in the same language as Alva’s song. Alva’s eyes went even wider than before, and in the same language, she asked some sort of question, and there followed a rapid conversation that had expressions of amazement, embarrassment, indignation and slight chagrin crossing her face in short succession, before finally settling on something speculative and considering. When she looked up, it was with an expression that combined all these things with a sort of suppressed excitement, and she cut off the rush of questions with a swift gesture, promising to explain everything in a minute, but that she needed to talk to Edelgard first, and perhaps Hubert.

Ferdinand baulked. “I thought you weren’t keeping dangerous secrets involving fae anymore?”

Alva snorted. “You can sit in, if you like, but El is still Emperor, and she and Hubert are going to be the ones making the call; I’ll tell everyone else at this evening’s daily after-dinner status update meeting, but this…” and Alva shook her head, incredulous mischief all over her face. “It’s good news, I promise.”

And press as he might, Ferdinand could not get her to expand before Edelgard and Hubert arrived, followed by Emrys and Claude, looking slightly discomposed. “Alva? Fleche said something about a spirit, I don’t understand—“ and Ferdinand could see the moment when she saw the sylph, tension mounting in her frame, only to pause as she processed the smile on her sister’s face. “Alva?”

“So, it turns out that singing the song of the lost in the sealed forest, with all the power I put behind it, showed more than just Emrys the way home,” said Alva, cheerful and unrepentant. “Apparently, the native fae of Fódlan were banished, a long time ago—unclear if the Nabateans or the Agarthans were responsible for that—and the reason the Agarthans needed to get Emrys to the Sealed Forest was that it is a weak spot in the fabric of the world, an old doorway between our realm and the faerie court, so when I sang the song of the lost there, with enough force to carry to the space between worlds, it was a beacon to show them the way back, too—and then, of course, Emrys opened the way, cutting the seal of banishment. So, the fae have been coming back, and they _owe us._ They’re willing to help us.”

For a moment, you could have heard a pin drop. Then everyone was speaking at once, and it was only thanks to the ingrained reflex to obey Emrys’s commander-voice that order was restored after a couple of minutes of confusion. Finally, however, the hubbub subsided, and Emrys asked, “Why did it take them this long to come offer their services, if they’ve been coming back since the sealed forest episode? That was more than three months ago.”

Alva looked almost embarrassed, now. “They were looking for me, not you—that is, they recognized that it was an elf-daughter who did the singing, so they went looking for an elf-daughter, and I’ve done a pretty good job hiding the fact that I’m not human, at least from the kind of search they were making. But this afternoon, Dorothea was singing the song of the lost, and I was singing _whisper the winds,_ which is apparently a song of calling, and the combination was enough to let this little one find me.”

Edelgard didn’t look entirely convinced. “And that’s a good thing?”

Alva snorted. “Ordinarily, it mightn’t be, but everyone that came through is from the Seelie court, not the Unseelie, and they owe me, and they’re offering their services—there might be a little bit of mischief, but they won’t harm anyone, and, El, think about it. Insubstantial, and capable of going unseen, and they can travel long distances faster than you’d believe _.”_

Claude was the first one to fully process the ramifications of that, and the smile that overspread his face when he did was a thing of wicked delight. “So, we have invisible, intangible, speedy and unsuspected messengers and spies—who our enemies don’t know exist, and can’t defend against. Alva, I could _kiss_ you.”

Even Hubert looked impressed, now. “How fast can they travel, exactly?” He asked, looking the little sprite over with new interest. “And can they speak Adrestian?”

This time, the sprite itself answered. “Those of us who have been seeking the singer can, and more can learn—we learn words quickly. We do not read or write, but we can learn, and I can fly the length of the land in the space of a song.”

Claude cackled, maniacally, and Ferdinand squeaked. Edelgard, entranced, asked, “And how many of you are there?”

“There are about a dozen of us smaller sprites who have been seeking the elf-singer; the barrier that kept us back is not broken, but merely a small opening cut in it, so the greater fae cannot follow.”

Faintly, Ferdinand heard himself quoting, “’Up the airy mountain, down the rushy glen, we daren’t go a-hunting, for fear of little men.’”

The little sprite puffed up, pride in its face. “Yes! We may be small, but we can be fierce!”

At that, Alva began to laugh, merrily, and with a gesture, assured the little sprite that it was no insult. When she regained her breath, she explained. “I have, for a long time now, been dealing with things I do not fully understand, enemies I cannot place, in the dark. This has been a war fought on unfamiliar territory, against enemies who do not obey the rules I understand. Even my allies are strange and unfathomable, in some ways. But this, now…” and her smile became vicious, sharp and bloody, and Ferdinand felt something in him quail, but he forced it down, reminding himself that this was Alva, whom he trusted. Alva continued, seeming not to notice his sudden discomfort, and he found her words oddly reassuring, for what they contained: “Now, we are on my ground, and it is I who dance, sure-footed: and the land shall turn against them, they who have turned on the hills in spite, digging up the thorn-trees planted for our pleasure; they shall find the sharpest thorns in their beds, and know not who placed them there, for they have _forgotten_ the lore, and they will learn the hard way the cost of crossing the Fair Folk.”

The little sprit, nodding, looked suddenly much more dangerous than it had before. In a voice that was suddenly charged with assurance, it said, “This is _our_ land. We remember.”

* * *

After a bit more discussion, Alva’s sprite (who was evidently called Thistle, and essentially genderless, but declared that she preferred ‘she’ to ‘it’ (someone suggested ‘they,’ but Thistle felt strongly that she was singular, and not a collective)) went off to fetch the other sprites that had come through. When she returned, Claude understood her objection to ‘they’: three of the sprites she brought with her were odd, shadowy little creatures, formless rather than humanoid, and they shared a sort of collective consciousness; individual enough to call themselves ‘we,’ but closely enough linked that they didn’t seem to ever use ‘I’. What one knew, all three of them knew; what one saw, all three of them saw. Hubert took one look at them and claimed them as his own, which surprised no one.

In fact, only four of the sprites were of the insubstantial air-sprite variety; apart from the three shadowy boggles, there were also three sturdy little gnomes—Pecht, Cruithne and Finn—and two classic fairies, Peony and Columbine, that looked like something straight out of a children’s tale, complete with wings.

When they introduced the sprites to Seteth, he was fascinated. When questioned, he admitted that he’d been under the impression that Alva’s ‘fae’ were simply something like the Nabateans, and being suddenly faced with evidence that this was not so was rather disconcerting. (Claude suspected that he was also cheered by the idea that there were more types of people out there than ‘humans’, ‘Nabateans’, and whatever the nightwalkers might or might not be.) Flayn was entirely charmed, especially when one of the air sprites changed her form into a perfect miniature replica of Flayn herself.

“And there are more of you?” asked Seteth, transfixed. One of the other wind spirits, who seemed to prefer a masculine shape dressed in feathers, laughed and nodded. “Oh, yes. We were the first, but the door is opened, now, you understand, and if the singer calls at the gateway, she will be answered, sure enough. Even if she doesn’t, we will continue to find our way back, years though it may take. This was our land, first, and it calls to us.”

Claude finally raised the idea that he had been turning over in his head, ever since he’d understood the potential of their newest allies. “I have stayed here so long because it seemed that this was the place to get the information soonest, but without that constraint, I think I perhaps ought to return to Derdriu—to help my grandfather ride herd on the Alliance, and to gather what information I can there, if one of you would be willing to accompany me and aid me…?” he asked the last delicately, looking at the collection of fae before him. They, in turn, looked to Alva, who grimaced, but nodded, saying, “I’ll miss you, but you’re right, we could use your skills better in Derdriu—and the information would be invaluable.”

The feathery male sprite looked Claude up and down, gave him a wicked smile, and stepped forward. “I’ll go. I’m called Robin, and I think we’ll get along fine.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so I have a couple of things to say, here. First of all: It looks like I'm going to have to overhaul the last few chapters again, because I realized that I hadn't actually been accounting/allowing for travel time before, and so the sequence of events/timeline as written doesn't actually make much sense. (One of the things I spent a stupid amount of time doing this past week was working up a six-page document comprising my notes on how long it takes people and information to get between places, and a timeline of exactly when various things are happening, starting from the events in the holy tomb.) Sorry to keep going back and changing things, but I shouldn't have to do so again once I've fixed it this time, at least I hope not. Actually, my frustration at the realities of travel times and trying to estimate how long it takes for people to find out about events taking place in distant locations is part of what inspired this chapter: I wanted to give them a way to communicate quickly over long distances. 
> 
> (Oh, and the up the airy mountain down the rushy glen bit, and Alva's mention of the thorn-trees, are both references to a poem called _The Fairies_ by a scottish poet named William Allingham.)
> 
> In the interest of giving credit where credit is due, since the sprites that show up here are actually inspired by rather more modern influences than the fae I've used previously, the 'boggles' (the little shadowy creatures with a shared consciousness) are based on the 'darkings' that show up in Tamora Pierce's novel, _Trickster's Queen._ Similarly, the three 'gnomes' were at least in part inspired by Terry Pratchett's Nac Mac Feegle. My wind sprites owe a good deal to Shakespeare's Ariel, as Peony and Columbine can claim inheritance from the fairies in Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream, and the Queen Mab speech in Romeo and Juliet. (Columbine additionally draws on the Harlequinade, incidentally.) Robin is, of course, a nod to Robin Goodfellow, AKA Puck--as if I would give Claude any but a trickster!


End file.
